“If we do this, we’ve got to do it right or I’ll end up in jail and so will you,” he said as he caressed her skin. “It will be soon, I promise. You’ll have to trust me and be patient.”

If someone wants to anonymously buy guns, ammo, drugs, credit card numbers, counterfeit money or codes to hack into other people’s computers they can find it all on the dark web. It’s like no other shopping experience in the world. One can order services from vendors who will do or get whatever the customer wants. Providing it’s all anonymous and paid for with crypto currency.

Kiddie porn—no problem. A slave—sure, get two for one. A paid killer—easy-peasy. The dark web is a veritable mall for evil featuring the latest hits from the black arts. Every bottom feeder and lowlife on the planet with something illegal to buy or sell eventually finds their way there. It’s the place to hawk merchandise be it human or other. Once in business, customers from around the globe drop in to do a little shopping. They even have sales and promotions. “Hurry, hurry, going fast. Weekly special—kidnappings are half price for only one thousand euros! Buy two!”

After his promise to Gabriela, Sr. Bello educated himself, reading as many articles on the dark web as he could find before he made a move and put his plan into motion.

Downloading the Tor browser, the way to get into the dark web, he was initially surprised that it looked so normal—a collection of marketplaces that sold a variety of products to the highest bidder. Except, once you scratched the surface and looked deeper into what they were actually selling, you knew you weren’t shopping at IKEA.

The dark web was a digital crime candy store. One vendor offered login credentials to a bank account that had more than $100,000 in it. Pay the fee for the credentials and you were in. Another was offering two for ones on counterfeit dollars, pounds, shekels, any currency you wanted—such a bargain. Vendors offered usernames and passwords, and pornography of all kinds, much of which most people didn’t know existed.

As Sr. Bello scrolled through each section with names like White House Market, Monopoly, Dark Market, Versus, Vice, and Enigma, it became evident that each group had their own specialty—their unique selling proposition. He dug further, searching for one that provided the services he specifically needed.

After clicking around for hours, he stumbled upon the Death Star Market. They had a range of vendors—credit cards, cocaine, and bomb materials but they also had a marketplace for soldiers of fortune, more commonly known as people who would do anything for a buck.