How The British Telegram Drug Market Works

Telegram is host to a plethora of flourishing drug markets that have become a serious contender to darknet markets, offering users a far lower technical barrier to entry. Anyone with the app can access Telegram drug markets with an invite link from a friend, and an understanding on how to buy and send cryptocurrencies. If that is too complicated, there are even Telegram-based drug services that, for a fee, will allow you to make a regular bank transfers and settle payment with your vendor in cryptocurrency. 

Thanks to end-to-end encrypted messaging and a simple interface, Telegram has become a popular platform for drug purchases – although it is impossible to know to what extent law enforcement are monitoring the activities of vendors and customers.

This report explores UK Telegram drug markets, their contents, culture, and business models. It’s not an exhaustive list and does not represent offline markets or Tor browser-based darknet markets.

The researcher & data privacy

This report is based on extensive primary research. Data was collected by a sole researcher who has now left all of these groups and will not be passing on any information or data to law enforcement or any other individual. The researcher has no interest in creating legal issues for Telegram vendors and has opted for anonymity for their own protection. By the time this is published, all data that contains vendor or group names will have been disposed of in an unrecoverable manner and the account used for data collection deleted. At no point did the researcher order drugs from any of these vendors. 

If you are a drugs researcher and would like to talk to the author, you can contact Release and ask to be put in touch.

Data collection

Data was collected for a period of 18 months, from March 2022 to August 2023. A total of 60 different vendors were recorded selling over 30 different drugs, but there were many more on offer. In total, there were 1,730 different listings recorded in the data. A listing was recorded if it was posted by an established vendor and its value was of over £1,000 although some listings advertised for well over £30,000. Only one listing was recorded per drug from each vendor in one month. 

22 different channels or groups were recorded, most of them with over 1,000 members. Some of these channels were run by single vendors, others were multi-vendor groups where customers and vendors could chat freely. A minority of vendors used bots with an administrator taking orders and making sure payments are received. Many others use bot technologies to allow customers to place and pay for orders without dealing with any humans.

Business models

None of these transactions are conducted face-to-face: similarly to the traditional darknet, British vendors use the Royal Mail. As with the darknet, discreet vacuum-sealed packaging was the norm across markets. According to the Telegram chats, it was very unusual for a package not to arrive. For those that didn’t, customers and vendors would suspect a postal worker had stolen the package rather than it being seized by authorities. Suppliers seem to operate largely unfettered by law enforcement, although there were a few instances where a vendor was reported to have been arrested. Some vendors appeared to have been using the same handles for many years. From the information available to this researcher, it seems reasonable to conclude that, in 2022, the postal strikes disrupted Telegram-based drug markets to a greater extent than law enforcement did.

Many of the larger vendors operate in teams, usually with a manager and a main supplier with an administrator taking orders and making sure payments are received. There might also be a packer (or different teams of packers) who package the orders and send them out. Each member could be in completely different parts of the country and may have never met each other. A small number of vendors were drop-shippers, taking orders from their customers and ordering from another vendor, thereby making a profit without actually handling any drugs themselves.

A few vendors would occasionally argue with each other, claiming that the other’s product was adulterated or fake. Some accusations were made through disinformation campaigns aimed at discrediting others. A small number of vendors were happy to ship internationally, with Australia seen as a particularly lucrative market. One vendor with an extensive menu offered their services across three different European countries, with drugs delivering from within that country. The researcher found two separate services that act as ‘holiday plugs,’ who take a nominal payment of £10 to connect you with a local drug dealer when you are abroad, with access to truly impressive databases of street-level dealers around the globe. There were also large channels that functioned solely to advertise other vendors.

Market culture

Topics discussed within groups ranged from the quality of drugs available, mental health peer support or very occasionally violent criminality. One channel purchased drugs from different vendors, tested them through various drug testing agencies and published their results online. Counterfeit banknotes, card fraud, document fraud and weapons were also topics of discussion, although many of these types of criminal actions were forbidden within drug-selling groups. It was clear that many other groups existed to facilitate fraudulent activity but were not the focus of this research. There were also many scammers present, with customers often complaining of being ripped off by copycat vendors.

Some of the people involved in running drug groups were very technologically savvy, as seen with the bots used to automate purchases. Although there was misogyny, racism, and hardcore pornography present in some groups, it would be unfair to define Telegram drug markets in these terms. Most vendors were polite and seemed keen to appear reliable and fair, as widespread competition left little space for poor quality products or unreliable service. Some vendors even hosted significant charity giveaways during the Christmas period.

Raffles were also surprisingly common, where customers could buy a ticket to win a variety of prizes. Some prizes were worth thousands of pounds worth of drugs; in another, the top prize for a raffle was a Mercedes A45 AMG – worth around £60,000 new. One vendor specialised in sending different types of faeces to an address of your choice – fox, horse, cow, et cetera. A ‘full cow pat’ was offered for £25 with packing and postage included. Maggots and crickets were also available.

Cocaine market

During the 18 months of data collection, there were 126 different cocaine stamps (the logo embossed onto a kilo brick of cocaine) recorded in the data. Most of the cocaine was advertised as Colombian in origin, although Bolivian, Peruvian and Ecuadorian bricks were also available – however, their real origins are impossible to verify. The quantities sold are also difficult to confirm; however, by the photos shown in vendors’ listings, they dealt with very large quantities of cocaine. Vendors’ adverts would often showed whole kilos of cocaine with the wrapping partly cut off, with some showing up to ten kilos of cocaine on pictures.

It was common for customers to comment that the cocaine purchased on Telegram was of higher purity than what was offered by conventional face-to-face dealers. Some vendors would simultaneously advertise cheaper ‘social coke’, adulterated with a specified amount of benzocaine (typically mixed as 70% cocaine 30% benzocaine). A small number of vendors sold benzocaine separately. Excluding ‘social coke’ listings, from March 2022 to August 2023, a total of 292 cocaine ounce listings were recorded across 24 vendors, with an approximate price drop of £200 per ounce (28g) during this period. The data is shown below.

This price drop happened at the same time that the Home Office announced record drug seizures at the border, with 3.36 tonnes of cocaine seized in the year ending March 2023. During the data collection period, 107 listings for a kilo of cocaine were recorded, with a drop in average price from £36,000 to £30,000. More data would have made these averages more reliable. The extent to which these figures reflect the offline cocaine market is unknown.

The vast majority of cocaine seized (by volume) in the UK is seized by the Border Force. If law enforcement efforts in this country are truly disrupting markets, then one would expect large-scale seizures to impact the market price of cocaine. Although the data is too limited to draw firm conclusions, there was a low positive correlation (0.305) detected between Border Force seizure volumes and ounce prices. This means that cocaine seizures did not have a meaningful impact on the market price of cocaine on Telegram. This is confirmed by the Home Office, which in its evaluation of their drug strategy in 2017 admitted that drug seizures have “little impact on drug availability”.

There are an estimated 219 organised crime groups involved in cocaine importation into the UK. If Border Force manages to disrupt one or even several of these groups with a large-scale seizure, it is unsurprising that other groups will step in to fulfil demand. On two occasions, vendors pointed towards multi-tonne seizures in Belgium or the Netherlands as the reason for upcoming shortages and price rises in the UK. After a 5-tonne seizure in Zebrugge in March 2023, one vendor commented in a public group:

“Thankfully 5 tons is nothing to the cartels and a fresh load will already be on the way. But we’ll try our hardest to stop prices moving during the interim.”

Ketamine

There were many different types of ketamine advertised on Telegram. Distinctions were made by some vendors between s-isomer and racemic ketamine, although it is unknown if these descriptions were accurate. There were also distinctions made between shard, fine grain, and large rock crystals, with customers reporting a wide variability in effect from batch to batch. 91 listings for ketamine were recorded over the 18-month period, showing a startling drop in the kilo price:

A significant quantity of the ketamine available was advertised as Indian, with a small amount as German; the vast majority did not have a source country advertised. Ketamine production in Myanmar and Cambodia has recently risen dramatically, with 13 ketamine laboratories discovered by authorities in Cambodia in 2022, but there is no specific information to suggest that any of the ketamine in the UK is originating from this region. Given the low quantities of ketamine seized by UK Border Force relative to the size of the overall market, calculating a statistical correlation between seizures and prices would not produce a reliable result. 

It is worth noting that the bulk price of ketamine continued to fall after data collection ceased, with many vendors listing kilos for under £3,000 as of Spring 2024. No explanation was offered by vendors for this reduction in price – possibly one of the most dramatic shifts in a UK drug market in the last decade. So far, the cause remains unknown.

MDMA

There were two main types of MDMA crystals advertised: champagne and cola. Cola was darker and more opaque, whereas champagne was a light amber colour. Champagne was generally recognised as higher quality and attracted a slightly higher price. Unfortunately, vendors did not always distinguish which type they were advertising, so making a distinction was not possible when working out the average kilo price of crystal MDMA. 

The average price across 73 listings remained somewhat stable across the 18-month period, ranging from £6,000 to £4,500 – but mostly in the region of £5,000. The price has dropped fairly dramatically since data collection ceased, with many vendors offering kilos for approximately £3,000 as of spring 2024.

There was a negligible correlation (0.14) between Border Force seizure volumes and kilo prices. This is unsurprising, given that the amount of MDMA being seized by Border Force is a very small proportion of the overall market size. More data points and a longer collection period would be necessary to draw firmer conclusions.

The average price of 1,000 MDMA pills remained generally stable throughout the period of data collection, but variability in pill strength from batch to batch means that these averages are not an accurate reflection of market trends. Pills were mostly advertised as containing 200 to 300mg of MDMA – but these numbers are impossible to verify. It was common for vendors to post pictures of reagent test results to demonstrate that their MDMA was genuine. One vendor claimed that their pills contained UK-made MDMA. It was not uncommon for a vendor to list 5,000 or 10,000 pills at once, and on one occasion a vendor offered 50,000 at once.

Psychedelics

2C-B listings were surprisingly common across many vendors – equally as common or more common than LSD. 2C-B pills were generally advertised as a little over 20mg in strength, although this information is impossible to verify. Across 41 listings across the data collection period, the median average price for 1,000 2C-B pills was £1,875. Similarly to MDMA pills, the wide variation of strength of LSD tabs makes it difficult to calculate an accurate average, although it is worth mentioning that it was possible to purchase up to 10,000 tabs at once. A kilo of mushrooms would typically fetch a little over £3,000. DMT was most commonly advertised in 1 gram or 0.5 gram vape cartridges. Across 11 listings, the average price for an ounce of powder DMT was £1,150. Changa (a herbal DMT mix) was much less common but also available. Other psychedelics seen included 4-AcO-DMT, 4-HO-MET and mescaline. 

Cannabis

Initial attempts to record listings for cannabis were quickly recognised as pointless: different strains have wildly different prices, and differences in batch quality makes the task impossible. For context, one ounce (28g) of cannabis flower could be priced at £140, with another at almost £400. Most listings labelled cannabis as UK or US grown, although some was shipped from Canada and Spain. 

A truly remarkable variety of cannabis products were available: flower, hash, shatter, sugar, wax, rosin, edibles, disposable vapes, RSO oil and more. There appeared to be an increasing trend towards vape cartridges or disposable vapes preloaded with distillate or a mixture of distillate and rosin. A small minority of vendors sold e-liquids marketed as containing THC, although WEDINOS test results of e-liquids typically test positive for synthetic cannabinoids. It appeared that the majority of cannabis-related groups and vendors shunned THC e-liquids, even making fun of their poor quality.

Benzodiazepines

Diazepam and alprazolam were the two most common benzodiazepines available, both remarkably cheap in bulk. Diazepam varied in price significantly, with those sold in blister packets often fetching a higher price. One vendor listed 50,000 diazepam pills for £4,000, advertised as 10mg each. Alprazolam was a common listing, with one vendor advertising 100,000 2mg bars for £15,000. Of course, it is impossible to verify whether these were genuine, accurately dosed or indeed another drug entirely – for example bromazolam or a nitazene.

Other drugs

Mephedrone was a common listing, seemingly making a resurgence in popularity while data collection was ongoing. Two different coloured batches were available, the more common orange crystals and some white crystals. Some of it was advertised as being manufactured in the UK. Across 23 listings, the median average for a kilo of mephedrone was £5,450.

According to the 2024 European Drug Report, European amphetamine (speed) is generally between 17% – 40% pure. Although there was a high variability in price reflecting different qualities, a kilo of amphetamine paste or powder would often fetch around £1,000. Methamphetamine was also listed by a small handful of vendors. 

Tusi (commonly a mixture of cocaine, MDMA, ketamine and other drugs) seemed like a niche drug on Telegram listed by a handful of vendors, with an ounce being advertised for £1,400. Some vendors appeared to be making their own batches.

Oxycodone was a very niche drug listed by only a handful of vendors. One vendor listed 280 80mg pills for £2,800. During data collection, there were a small number of listings for heroin, with ounces being listed from £800 – £1,400. Since data collection ceased more vendors offering heroin have been discovered, although there remains only a handful. Many of these vendors also offered crack cocaine.

A transformative market

Encrypted apps like Telegram are important and transformative drug markets. While Whatsapp and Signal remain common tools for face-to-face dealers, Telegram has proved popular among those offering postal services. Although the false advertisement is likely to be widespread, Telegram customers are able to provide public feedback and develop clearer ideas of the products available to them. Vendors are also encouraged to have open feedback systems due to ultra-competitive markets, creating an incentive to ensure quality and avoid adulteration where possible. Larger vendors can offer retail prices that far outcompete most face-to-face dealers, especially in more rural areas. Many of the vendors discussed here were selling kilos at a time, enabling very competitive gram prices.

The nature of postal delivery reduces the opportunities for black-market violence and exploitation compared with face-to-face markets. Customers who only use postal markets are not only safer from face-to-face violence and exploitation, there’s also evidence that they may also be less likely to make impulse purchases given postal orders need to be planned several days in advance. 

More research is needed to assess how postal markets impact drug dependency and other drug-related harms.  But Telegram offers an interesting insight into a thriving market that, despite law enforcement’s best efforts to stop, provides a safer and less violent alternative to traditional drug purchases.