On January 31, 2020, India’s Narcotics Control Bureau arrested Deepu Singh a 21 year old hotel management graduate, from his home in Alambagh, Lucknow. With this arrest, investigators uncovered what they described as India’s first known darknet based drug trafficking operation.
Singh had quietly built a global network that shipped psychotropic drugs and controlled substances to customers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Romania, Spain and other parts of Europe. To his neighbors, he looked like an ordinary young man. To international drug buyers, he was a reliable online vendor operating in the hidden corners of the internet.
Singh sold drugs on darknet marketplaces called Empire Market and Majestic Garden. These platforms are only accessible through special software that hides the identity and location of users. On these sites, he listed pills and tablets using coded product names that made them look like health supplements or sexual wellness products.
Buyers placed orders online and paid using cryptocurrency, which does not require names or bank details. This made the money trail extremely difficult for authorities to follow. Singh then packed the drugs and sent them through international courier and postal services, allowing the parcels to blend in with thousands of ordinary shipments moving across borders every day.
From a small room in Lucknow, he managed customers across continents.
The operation began to unravel in late January 2020 when one of Singh’s parcels was intercepted and linked to illegal drug shipments. The information was shared with Indian authorities, who began tracking the digital and physical trail back to Lucknow.
On January 31, 2020, officers from the Narcotics Control Bureau raided Singh’s apartment. Inside, they found around 12,000 tablets of psychotropic drugs along with digital evidence linking him to darknet marketplaces and international buyers.
The scale of the operation surprised investigators. Singh was not acting like a small time seller. His listings, customer base and shipping records showed a well organized system that moved drugs across borders with alarming ease.
Deepu Singh grew up in Lucknow. He is the son of a retired Army officer and had completed a degree in hotel management. There was no criminal history attached to his name before this case.
Investigators believe Singh first tried running legitimate online businesses before moving into illegal drug sales, attracted by the higher profits and the anonymity offered by the darknet. He handled customer orders, payments and logistics himself, operating almost like a one person export business, but with banned substances instead of legal goods.
Despite long interrogation, Singh never revealed the identity of his suppliers. Authorities also said the cryptocurrency wallets linked to his darknet accounts had not been fully traced, leaving a major part of the financial trail unresolved.
In December 2019, weeks before Singh was arrested, Indian and international agencies had already seized more than 55,000 psychotropic tablets in coordinated operations in India and the United Kingdom. These seizures were later linked to the same darknet markets where Singh was selling his products.
After his arrest, further investigations led to additional arrests of people suspected of helping move or store drugs ordered through darknet platforms. This showed that Singh was part of a larger web of suppliers and logistics handlers, even though he remained one of its most visible faces.
(Rh/ARC)
