‘India lost $18.5 b due to digital blackmarkets’

Director of think-tank says terror groups are acting as force multipliers

Even as the India economy looks set for a leap with the government’s ‘Digital India’ vision, losses due to the digital black or ‘darknet’ markets is only likely to grow, a foreign policy think-tank says.

Digital black markets operate via darknets and are involved in illegal sale of drugs, cyber-arms, weapons, counterfeit currency, stolen credit card details, forged documents, unlicensed pharmaceuticals, steroids and other illicit goods including child pornography.

According to a report by Gateway House, India suffered an economic loss of $18.5 billion in 2017 due to business on the digital black markets, a four-fold increase from $4.2 billion in 2014.