News · Drug offences
Supplying drugs on the dark web in NSW.
Cybercrime Squad detectives charged three Hunter men this week over an alleged darknet drug syndicate, refused them bail, and listed a stack of supply counts against each one. The marketplace was online and the payment may have been in cryptocurrency, but the charges are the ordinary ones. Selling drugs on the dark web is supply, and the most serious count carries 20 years.
By Aaron Kernaghan · Published 19 July 2026
The news, in summary.
On 15 July 2026 the State Crime Command's Cybercrime Squad executed search warrants at Lambton and Chisholm in the Hunter region under Strike Force Fradine, which was set up in March 2026 to investigate an alleged online vendor selling prohibited drugs on a darknet marketplace. Three men were arrested and charged. Police allege one 29-year-old faced ten counts, and two 32-year-olds faced twelve and ten counts. The charge lists include supply of prohibited drugs across a range of quantities, supply on an ongoing basis, directing or contributing to a criminal group, and failing to comply with a digital evidence access order direction. All three were refused bail to appear at the Bail Division Local Court on 16 July.
Those matters are before the court and the men charged are presumed innocent. What follows is about the law, not the people.
The point of interest is that the charge sheet holds no offence unique to the dark web. There is no crime of "selling drugs online" as such. The internet is the shop front, not the offence. The offence is supply, and it lives in a 1985 statute written long before the technology existed.
Is going on the dark web illegal in Australia?
No. Running the Tor browser and reaching a darknet site is not an offence. Plenty of the traffic there is lawful. The illegality turns on what a person does once inside, in exactly the way that walking down a street is lawful and dealing drugs on it is not.
A darknet marketplace is an online market that offers illegal goods and services, prohibited drugs among them. Buying, selling or importing drugs through one is caught by the same laws that apply to a hand-to-hand deal. In NSW that is the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985 (NSW). Where the drugs come from overseas, the Commonwealth import offences under the Criminal Code also apply, which we cover in our note on drug importation. The medium does not change the offence. It changes the evidence.
What is the penalty for drug supply in NSW?
Supply is defined in section 3 of the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985 and it is wide. It includes sell and distribute, but also agreeing to supply, offering to supply, keeping or having in possession for supply, and sending, forwarding, delivering or receiving for supply. A darknet listing that offers a drug for sale can be supply before anything is posted, because an offer to supply is enough.
The maximum depends on the weight. For a prohibited drug other than cannabis, supply under section 25(1) carries up to 15 years and 2,000 penalty units when it is dealt with in the District Court. Supply of a commercial quantity is an offence under section 25(2) with a maximum of 20 years, and a large commercial quantity carries 25 years. Cannabis attracts lower maximums. Smaller amounts, up to the indictable quantity, can be kept in the Local Court, where the most the court can impose is 2 years for a single offence. Keeping a matter in the Local Court, where that is available, is often the single most valuable thing that can be done for a client.
Police lay the count that fits the quantity. In the Strike Force Fradine matters the alleged counts run from "greater than small and less than indictable" up to "greater than indictable and less than commercial", which is the ladder set by the quantity tables in Schedule 1. The higher the alleged weight, the higher the court and the higher the risk. Our page on drug supply in NSW works through the quantities in detail.
What is supply on an ongoing basis?
This is the charge that fits a darknet vendor account, and it is the most serious count in the Fradine allegations. Section 25A of the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985 makes it an offence to supply a prohibited drug other than cannabis on three or more separate occasions during any period of 30 consecutive days, for a financial or material reward. The maximum is 20 years and 3,500 penalty units.
The section is aimed at the business, not the single sale. The courts have said it is directed to repetition, system and organisation. That is what a vendor profile with a sales history looks like on paper. The drug does not have to be the same on each occasion. But the jury must be satisfied about the same three occasions, so the Crown has to prove three clean, separate supplies, not just a general pattern. On sentence, a section 25A count is a serious matter that usually points to full-time custody. We set out how it works in our note on ongoing supply.
What is deemed supply?
Deemed supply is how a possession case becomes a supply case without proof of a sale. Under section 29 of the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985, a person in possession of not less than a traffickable quantity of a prohibited drug is taken to have had it for supply, unless the person proves they had it for something other than supply. The prosecution proves the weight. The accused then has to prove the innocent purpose on the balance of probabilities.
Possession still has to be proved, and it carries its ordinary meaning: physical custody or control, plus knowledge. The leading case is He Kaw Teh v The Queen (1985) 157 CLR 523, where the High Court held that knowledge is part of a drug possession offence. In a darknet case the weight found on a search warrant can be the strongest single piece of evidence, because it can lift a personal-use possession into a deemed supply without the Crown proving a single transaction.
Does using the dark web make it a criminal group offence?
It can, and both of the Fradine syndicate charges come from the same section. Section 93T of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) makes it an offence to participate in a criminal group. Under section 93T(1), a person who participates in a criminal group knowing, or who ought reasonably to know, that it is a criminal group and that their participation contributes to criminal activity, faces up to 5 years. Under section 93T(1A), a person who directs any of the group's activities faces up to 10 years. Police alleged one man knowingly directed activities and the others contributed.
A criminal group is a group of three or more people who have as one of their objectives obtaining a material benefit from serious indictable offences. A drug operation run by a small team fits. The charge lets the Crown put the joint enterprise in front of the court as a fact in its own right, and it adds a count that sits on top of the supply counts. We explain the section and how it is defended in our note on participating in a criminal group.
How do police catch dark web drug dealers?
Rarely by breaking the anonymity of the site. The dark web hides the connection, not the parcel and not the money. Most of these cases start with one physical or financial thread.
The post is the common one. Drugs bought online still have to be delivered, so a package intercepted at a mail centre can lead to a controlled delivery, then a search warrant at the address, then the devices inside. Payment is the other. Cryptocurrency is not untraceable. Every transaction sits on a public ledger, and specialist blockchain analysis can follow the flow of funds to the point where coins are cashed out through an exchange that holds identity records. Seized vendor records are a third: when an overseas marketplace is taken down, the customer and vendor data can be shared with the AFP and state police for years afterward.
The lesson of Operation Ironside, the AFP investigation built on the AN0M app that produced hundreds of Australian arrests when it was revealed in June 2021, is the one that matters here. An encrypted or anonymous platform is only safe on the assumption that police are not already inside it. That assumption has failed more than once. Worth remembering too: the first arrest and conviction anywhere for dealing drugs over the Silk Road marketplace happened in Australia.
Once the warrant is executed, the case turns on the phone. That is why two of the Fradine accused were also charged with failing to comply with a digital evidence access order direction, the offence of refusing to hand police a password. We wrote about that power, and why self-incrimination is not a reasonable excuse for refusing, in our note on digital evidence access orders.
What about the money?
Where there is alleged drug supply for reward, there is usually a proceeds charge behind it. Cashing out cryptocurrency, moving it through wallets, or converting it to goods can support a money laundering count. In NSW that is section 193B or 193C of the Crimes Act 1900. Where the Commonwealth is involved, it is Division 400 of the Criminal Code, which we cover in our note on money laundering and proceeds of crime. Holding the value of the drug trade in any form can also be a charge of its own, which we set out in possess proceeds of crime. The financial trail is often where a defended case is won or lost, because the Crown has to link the money to the drugs.
What we do for clients facing these charges.
Start with attribution, because a darknet case is a case about who was behind an account. A vendor profile, a wallet, a device in a shared house. The Crown has to prove the person in the dock is the person who did the supplying, and that link is often built by inference from a phone and a login. Whose device was it? Who else had access? What was actually on it, and how was it read? A shared machine and an unnamed account is a very different case from a personal laptop with a logged-in vendor session.
Then the search and the seizure. These matters come out of warrants and device examinations, and section 138 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW) asks whether evidence was obtained improperly or unlawfully, and if so whether it should still be admitted. We have written about that discretion in DPP v Kan. Then the quantity, because the count and the court both follow the weight, and the analyst's certificate is not beyond challenge. Then jurisdiction, because holding a supply charge in the Local Court caps the exposure at 2 years and is worth fighting for early.
Bail is usually the first problem. Ongoing supply is a serious offence, and a syndicate allegation makes the police case for detention stronger, so bail often has to be argued as a show cause matter. Our note on show cause bail sets out what has to be established. And if a warrant has just been executed at your home, our note on what to do after a search warrant covers the first steps, the most important of which is to say nothing and call a lawyer before you touch a device.
Frequently asked.
Is going on the dark web illegal in Australia?
No. Using the Tor browser or visiting a darknet site is not itself an offence. What is on the site decides the crime. Buying, selling, importing or possessing prohibited drugs through a darknet marketplace is caught by the same laws that apply to a deal in a car park. The Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985 (NSW) does not care whether the deal happened in person or over an encrypted marketplace.
What is the penalty for drug supply in NSW?
It depends on the quantity. Supply of a prohibited drug other than cannabis under section 25(1) of the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985 carries a maximum of 15 years and 2,000 penalty units in the District Court. Supply of a commercial quantity carries 20 years under section 25(2), and a large commercial quantity carries 25 years. Smaller amounts can be dealt with in the Local Court, where the most the court can impose is 2 years.
What is supply on an ongoing basis?
Section 25A of the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985 makes it an offence to supply a prohibited drug other than cannabis on three or more separate occasions during any period of 30 consecutive days, for a financial or material reward. The maximum is 20 years and 3,500 penalty units. The jury must agree on the same three occasions. It is the charge police reach for when the evidence shows a repeat business, which is what a darknet vendor account looks like.
What is deemed supply?
Under section 29 of the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985, a person found in possession of not less than a traffickable quantity of a prohibited drug is taken to have had it for supply, unless they prove they had it for some other purpose. The prosecution does not have to prove a sale. The onus shifts to the accused. It is why the weight found in a search matters as much as any message.
How do police catch dark web drug dealers?
Not usually by cracking the encryption. Most cases start at the post. A parcel intercepted at a mail centre leads to a controlled delivery, then a search warrant, then a phone. Police also trace cryptocurrency payments across the blockchain, work from seized vendor records after an overseas marketplace is taken down, and use digital evidence access orders to compel a password. The anonymity is real until one physical or financial thread is pulled.
What is the Ironside operation?
Operation Ironside was the AFP investigation built on the AN0M encrypted app, which the AFP and the FBI ran and monitored. When it was revealed in June 2021 it produced hundreds of arrests in Australia. It is the clearest example of the point that matters here: an encrypted or anonymous platform is only as safe as the assumption that police are not already inside it.
How do you report a drug dealer in Australia?
Information about drug supply can be given to Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or online, and it is treated in confidence. Information about darknet or online offending can also go to the Australian Cyber Security Centre. In an emergency, call Triple Zero.
To speak to a criminal defence lawyer, call Aaron Kernaghan on 0421 717 019.
This article is written by Aaron Kernaghan, criminal defence lawyer at Good Legal Lawyers, as at 19 July 2026. It is commentary and reflects the personal opinion of the author only. It is not legal advice, it is not a substitute for advice on your own matter, and it does not purport to be accurate or complete. Any matter referred to may be before the court and any person charged is presumed innocent. For advice on a specific matter, contact Aaron Kernaghan on 0421 717 019 or contact the firm.
More criminal-law commentary by Aaron Kernaghan.
Sources: Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985 (NSW), ss 3, 25, 25A, 29 · Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), s 93T · Judicial Commission of NSW, Sentencing Bench Book, Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act offences · He Kaw Teh v The Queen (1985) 157 CLR 523 on JADE · NSW Police media release, Strike Force Fradine, 15 July 2026 · AFP, Cybercrime