September 4, 2025

Interns are an integral part of the CACI tradition—and especially dear to our team at DarkBlue, where many of our current developers and engineers got their start as summer interns. Each year, we look forward to bringing in new perspectives from students who are passionate about national security, emerging technologies, and the future of intelligence.

This summer, we were lucky to work with Ian Solano, a standout undergraduate at George Mason University. He brought curiosity, sharp thinking, and technical initiative to every project—and capped off his internship with the thoughtful piece below: Illicit Power in the Age of the Darknet.

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About the author: Ian Solano is an international security and law undergraduate at George Mason University, with a focus on emerging technologies, illicit markets, and security policy. As a summer analyst at CACI, Ian authored Illicit Power in the Age of the Darknet, a cross-disciplinary piece exploring how modern drug smuggling mimics stateless governance and how tools like DarkBlue can expose these structures. His work also includes building his own locally hosted AI chatbots and developing a generative AI assistant to streamline the Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) process. LinkedIn: Ian Solano


Seeing in the Dark: Inside CACI’s Fight Against Stateless Crime Networks

Illicit Power in the Age of the Darknet

by Ian Solano

It’s a foggy night in the spring of 1839. Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu has just signed orders in Canton to stop the opium trade. That same night, a British merchant quietly loaded illegal cargo onto a Chinese boat under lantern light. He knew the risk. Under Qing law, punishment for smuggling opium could be severe, possibly even death (National Archives, n.d.; National Army Museum, n.d.; Horowitz, 2020).

This period reflects a recurring pattern in history: when official channels block access to profit, people tend to create workarounds. With these alternative routes, relying not on laws, but on unspoken rules, personal trust, and shared risk.

In today's online world, this pattern is prevalent in darknet drug markets. These platforms illegally operate outside state jurisdiction, but they still manage to function with some form of internal control. Systems such as vendor ratings, escrow services, and moderator oversight offer a sense of coordination only to support a continued trade in dangerous, illegal goods (Investopedia, 2025; CACI, 2025b; Schneider et al., 2021). These practices don’t reflect sophistication so much as the basic need to avoid betrayal and minimize loss in risky exchanges.

In 2022, synthetic opioids were involved in more than 73,000 U.S. deaths. By 2024, the number declined but still exceeded 48,000 (CDC, 2025; Ovalle, 2025). This paper argues that by looking at these systems through an anthropological and realist lens, one can help identify how they function and the critical points for dismantling them. Technologies such as CACI’s DarkBlue Intelligence Suite assist analysts in identifying patterns among anonymous actors, providing opportunities for disruption before the next trafficking network matures.

As digital organized crime continues to grow, one of the main concerns is its ability to adapt quickly. These networks thrive in spaces where oversight is weak. They take advantage of delays and limitations in policy enforcement. Many public responses focus on symptoms rather than the underlying structures. Understanding how these illegal systems persist even without formal government support requires an examination of how they replicate basic forms of control. Platforms like DarkBlue play a role in uncovering these informal operations.

Trade, legal or not, has always been part of human society. Illegal trade is not simply the work of individuals acting alone. From colonial opium routes to modern trafficking across borders, many illicit systems have operated with their internal coordination. In The Art of Not Being Governed, anthropologist James C. Scott describes how some highland communities in Southeast Asia stayed outside state control by being mobile, avoiding written records, and resisting top-down authority. These “nonstate spaces” were structured in ways that made control by governments difficult (Scott, 2009, Chapters 1–3).

Darknet markets, while much less organized than any real governing structure, share a few superficial similarities. They use basic reputation scores, administrators, and transaction protections. But these tools are not signs of complex governance; rather, they are improvised methods for criminals to reduce their own exposure and loss. Trust here is based on necessity, not on shared norms or values. These platforms exist not because they are well-designed, but because enforcement has not yet caught up. They depend on staying hidden and changing tactics often. Law enforcement, still working from older models of investigation (and funding), struggles to target something that keeps shifting.

The damage caused by these networks is significant. Fentanyl caused more than 90 percent of U.S. opioid-related deaths in 2022. While the death toll dropped in 2024, more than 48,000 people still died (CDC, 2025). These numbers reflect the harm caused by online trafficking, which has become efficient not through coordination, but through sheer persistence and low accountability.

Consider the case of one particular U.S.-based vendor as a case study (who will not be named here due to pending law enforcement action). This vendor sold fentanyl supplied by cartels across several markets. He used crypto, answered quickly, and maintained a positive reputation, all of which are strategies aimed not at building a sustainable system but simply at avoiding detection. After the major darknet platform Archetyp was shut down in 2025, vendors quickly scattered into smaller, encrypted groups. These new markets are harder to trace but operate on the same fragile foundations: invitation-only access, limited oversight, and temporary anonymity (Europol, 2025; Kar-Gupta, 2025; CACI, 2025b). Just like past smuggling routes, when one line closes, another opens. This is not because of innovation or resilience, but because online anonymity makes it difficult to track and shut down every node. Lawlessness breeds innovation faster than enforcement can respond (Koot, 2016).

However, the real issue is not disorder, but the difficulty in identifying these dispersed systems. Political realist theory reminds us that even without formal authority, people often create basic rules to avoid chaos. Legal experts Roberts and Guelff point out that even in conflict zones, cultural norms tend to shape behavior (Anderson, 2004). In darknet markets, something similar occurs, but only at the minimal level needed to keep transactions flowing. CACI’s DarkBlue Intelligence Suite helps analysts map these weak structures and find points where they can be interrupted. In the case of the vendor previously referenced, investigators used DarkBlue to uncover shared wallet addresses and behavior patterns. These connections helped link vendors across multiple platforms, exposing more than one actor (CACI, 2025a). The breakthrough was not in defeating an organized system, but in revealing how unstructured and repetitive these networks really are.

DarkBlue brings together open, deep, and dark web data into one place, while its virtual investigation tool, DarkPursuit, lets analysts browse hidden markets safely. With more than ten years of collected data, DarkBlue can surface reappearances when vendors change platforms or aliases. This shifts the strategy from chasing individuals to identifying recurring behaviors across systems (CACI, 2025c; GOV.UK, 2020). This shift supports earlier intervention, reducing the window in which networks can grow unnoticed.

Illicit trade networks do not last because they are stable. They last because they avoid being detected long enough to do damage. When Lin Zexu destroyed opium in 1839, British traders simply shifted their supply routes. When Archetyp fell in 2025, darknet vendors regrouped into private “boutiques” (Horowitz, 2020; Europol, 2025; CACI, 2025b). These shifts confirm that even weak systems, if left alone, can continue harming public health. As Anderson and Gifford (2004) argue, even without formal power, some kind of system tends to emerge.

The challenge is not to study these systems for their own sake, but to find the tools to dismantle them. Tools like DarkBlue help reveal how they reassemble after takedowns. Used alongside national cybersecurity programs and digital risk partners, these platforms give investigators a better chance of detecting reorganizations early. With thousands of lives at stake each year, the urgency is clear. There is little time to wait for the next mutation.


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