OPERATORS: How long do they live and how much are they paid in 2025. Work from the Darknet.

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Operators. At first glance, this is the safest role on the darknet, especially when compared to their colleagues in the shop: stashmen, sportsmen, cooks and other participants in the underground world. But is everything as smooth as it seems? What is the essence of this work? How much do they pay for it? Are there any risks? Or is it really an ideal option for those looking for remote work on the Internet?

When it comes to illegal substances and the darknet, most people immediately think about big money and high risks. However, there are exceptions, and one of them is working as an operator. In this topic, you will learn who drug shop operators are, how they become part of the system, how they remain anonymous, how much they earn, what their responsibilities are and, most importantly, how long they live. Read carefully, it will be interesting.

At one time, the work of a Darknet shop operator was a kind of Rubicon for many Internet users. While the courier position was equated with the work of Dropp, who would inevitably be sold out, the activities of operators were surrounded by rumors of their invulnerability.

We will talk about the risks for network employees of drug markets today, and I will try to find out how realistic it is to sit down for drugs without working with anything prohibited in real life. I am sure the final conclusions will surprise you. Before we begin, let's figure out the structure of the vacancy itself. What do people do, how much money do they get for it, and what methods of protection do they use? Based on this data, it is quite possible to identify associated risks.

A store operator, or as it is also called "support", is a very typical role for any developed store. In small shops, it is often the owners themselves who work in this vacancy, since usually due to the small number of orders, their strength is enough to do such work, because it will not take much time, and the activity itself usually implies only a few typical tasks. The main and most important of them is dialogue with clients, that is, with junkies, answering their questions or helping with their orders.

Treasures are often not found, and therefore a person is needed who will separate the scammers from people with real problems. Some go to the forest, that is, not to the forest belt for a new stash, but to hell, and the second receive compensation. Everything is logical here. Secondary tasks, as a rule, take noticeably less time. The larger the store, the more online staff it will have, who will have more narrowly specialized tasks.

For example, in a developed store there will definitely be a curator in a separate position, a management position over all the store's couriers, and in a small store, the commands will most likely be given either by the owner himself or the same operator. In a large store, it is also likely that a separate person will be in charge of accounting, while in a small store this will be done by either the owner, or the operator, or the same curator. Simply put, the more successful the store, the narrower the operator's specialization will be, because his main job is communicating with clients. It

is also worth mentioning something. On the Darknet, operators are usually those who have at least some authority in the store, for example, the right to request compensation or manage non-essential online positions. But exclusively powerless employees who are "talking heads" and only communicate with clients are called "supports". In essence, this does not change much. Even if the operator is above the supports, he organizes the process and still takes part in dialogues with clients himself.

Therefore, I will not further separate the support and operators, because their rights may differ, but their duties are almost identical. It's high time to talk about what exactly ordinary online employees do. Since junkies often have problems with stashes, disputes are opened, that is, arguments about them. And it is in disputes that operators spend the most time, in principle, as in some legal stores, support, that is, support is usually busy sorting out certain orders.

Somewhere they sent something wrong, somewhere they mixed up the address, somewhere the parcel got lost, and so on. Let's assume a common situation in a large Darknet store. The client has 10 successful purchases, as well as 2 problematic ones. He contacts the store with a claim that the buried treasure was not found on the spot, and therefore requires a cut-off return. At this point, the operator politely responds, begins checking how real the problem may be.

He looks at the statistics of the courier who left this treasure, understands that the employee has almost ideal indicators, and for 10 successful caches there is only one mistake. Obviously, the treasure is reliable, and therefore the person could not find it due to improperly conducted searches. This can be affected by the time of day, because it is always more difficult to search in the ground at night, as well as weather conditions, because the package could have been washed away by rain, covered with snow, and so on. The courier is invited to the dialogue, from whom the operator asks for clarification on how exactly and where to conduct the search so that the person finds what he was looking for.

The store employee himself, for example, the Bookmarker, who made the cache, cannot go there for obvious reasons. There is a high probability of encountering a huge number of troubles on the spot. An inadequate junkie who decided to rob the courier, angry wrestlers with the aim of beating up the distributor of all sorts of crap, and, of course, the police. Therefore, only one person can return there, and this is the client himself. After he goes back to the place again, the problem must either be solved, or the operator will have to make a decision on issuing or not issuing compensation.

Let's assume that the clarification and comments of the courier did not help. In this case, the online employee will most likely offer to solve the problem with a 50% coupon for the purchase of the next product. Why not a refusal or partial compensation? It's simple, the client is a regular and has already made more than a dozen transactions. The store does not want to lose such a person, but it also does not want to issue full compensation for the failure to find the stash, because this is usually the most reliable type of stash, and who knows, maybe the client decided to receive stashes as cashback from time to time, without the presence of a corresponding promotion.

That is, to deceive the store. The risks for the operator when participating in such a dialogue are unclear. Obviously, a person can do all this work at the computer and not go anywhere. Operators never check the stashes personally and certainly do not meet with their colleagues. This means that the risks lie only in the network plane, and therefore let's consider the operator's inventory, its software and hardware. Today, 99% of operators work on only two types of platforms.

This is either the Darknet Marketplace, or, if the store works in Telegram, on a special site, which is simply a convenient way to communicate through a bot inside the messenger. Clients receive answers in their Telegram, and the operator sits comfortably through the panel, this is what these very sites are called, necessary for communication in Telegram without being present in the messenger itself. As a rule, the panels are located in the regular Internet, not in Dark, but the connection to them is always made through a tor browser, but is it really enough for the operator to have only a bare tor to work?

I will answer this question, but first I will give a short answer to another one that worries many, where to change money? There are many exchangers, but I use audi-a6.Bz, a consistently good rate in all directions, everything is always in stock, they change crypto to fiat and vice versa, in addition to transferring to a card, you can exchange it for cash, which is issued in different parts of the world, for me, as a person who likes to travel, this is very convenient, and let's also imagine a situation where you have dirty crypto.

Of course, you did nothing wrong, but suddenly someone else transferred it to you, what a scoundrel. In order to avoid any problems, it would not hurt to clean it. And here you can do it, since no one will look at your AML, no one will block the funds, as many other exchangers do. In general, the link is in the description, go for it. Working through Windows in the Darknet is considered a sign of unprofessionalism, since installing and configuring a secure system usually takes no more than an hour.

There are two most popular options for secure operating systems, which we should have already talked about earlier. Well, or not, I don’t remember. So this is Tails, which is reset after each restart and allows you not to store evidence, and Vonix, which has a network space and a working area divided into two separate OS, due to which it is possible to achieve a fairly high level of security. There is also Cubes, which allows you to install a huge number of operating systems inside itself, and each of them will be isolated.

But to run such software, you need to have a fairly powerful PC with specific hardware inside. Because of the complexity of this system, it is usually used by store owners, but not by ordinary operators. If you are wondering what is used most often, the answer is simple - Tails. It can be loaded onto a flash drive and in the event of a sudden masked show with the Guardians of the Galaxy in the apartment, removed from the computer, which is why no data will be saved on it. Here, for example, is a video of how a cop abroad screwed up and removed a flash drive, erasing all the evidence.

After rebooting, there will be an absolutely bare operating system, but more is not needed, only a tor browser is needed. And it is already pre-installed on Tails, and you do not need to download it again. It is because of the simplicity of this operating system and the fact that it passes absolutely all Internet traffic through the onion network that the vast majority of darknetworkers use it. Here a question may arise, if a person constantly sits through a tor browser, then the provider sees the subscriber's constant connection to the onion network, which means he stands out from other clients of the provider.

For example, an ordinary fan of gawking at the Darknet or buying something prohibited there will hardly spend more than two hours a week in Tor, but a network worker will sit for 12 hours a day. This is how long a typical shift lasts for an operator of a shadow store, and the number of working days per week is from 5 to 6. This means that such a user will be connected to Tor most of the time, it is impossible not to notice him, because so, on At this point, two new players immediately intervene in the game - Roskomnadzor and the FSB.

First, let's talk about Russia's main special service - providers are required to install software and hardware called SORM on their devices. This is exactly what allows monitoring Internet traffic and storing it within the Yarovaya package - something like legalized mass surveillance. And indeed, operators would be jailed in droves for constant connection to the Tor network, if not for one "but". Roskomnadzor mercilessly blocks Tor network exits, and therefore using the onion network in Russia today is only possible with the use of private bridges.

This is something like a personal exit to Tor for an individual user. Bridges can be obtained, for example, in the official Tor bot in Telegram. Because of which we get the following picture. The FSB can sort of catch careless operators working at public entry points to Tor. But RKN banned these points, and now even ordinary users connect to Tor through personal bridges. As a result, Tor Traffic of almost any operator is hidden and cannot be tracked.

After all, it is no different from regular Internet connections, so this method will not work to catch even the most stupid employees, even if they connect with an unprotected OS and just sit with Windows. I also came across another rather remarkable way to identify any online employees, this is to find messages with the exact time of their sending on public Darknet forums, so that later, by analyzing all RF providers using SORM, you can find who sent requests at that time.

However, this looks pretty crazy. Firstly, there is no mention that SORM is able to systematize data from all providers at once and automatically transfer them to the FSB. And secondly, every second our devices send a huge number of requests to the Internet, sometimes providing reports to manufacturers, checking their own connection, or simply tracking your activities. Simply put, this option looks completely far-fetched, because if not billions, then certainly millions of requests are processed throughout the country per second.

What can we say about a minute interval, it is almost impossible to find someone in this way. And it is far from certain that the technical equipment of any special service in the world is capable of such operations even within the framework of one state. But online store personnel can work from abroad, and what in this case? How to check the traffic then? Although, to be fair, operators usually simply do not have the money to move. This is an opportunity for most dealers and managers, that is, their deputies, who have sufficient funds for permanent residence abroad.

It seems to be absolutely safe. The abundance of tor traffic is hidden by personal connection points. You don't have to go anywhere. Do you want to run and get a job? Not really. At first glance, safe work is not paid very generously. What do we have? First of all, of course, the very fact of criminal activity. There is no separate article in the legislation for operators, and therefore they can pin literally anything. They can hang any amount of weight and sit down for 20 years. Yes, so far we have not figured out how you can sit down if you do everything wisely.

But the fact is that for this they will stick even harsher than a courier. Secondly, who would have thought that they pay modestly for all this. For example, in a small store with few customers, they will pay 30 thousand a month for 5-6 working days a week with 12-hour shifts. People even agree to this, just to sit at home remotely, and no one forbids you to load yourself with work and get a job in several small shops at once. In a large store, where you can’t sit on a shift and play Dota at the same time, they can pay from 40 to 150 thousand.

On average, of course, they pay around 80 hundredths, but in return, a person will simply be chained to his own workplace and will go crazy, sitting at the computer. All this can be aggravated by night shifts. Modern drug markets invest in customer focus, and therefore want to have 24/7, the store to be online and someone will definitely be there if a buyer decides to write. As you can guess, the audience at drug shops is specific.

People use during the day, and in the evening, and late at night, and in the morning they want to buy a dose. In such conditions, it is necessary to have people constantly on shifts, and therefore, on average, a developed store has at least three online employees who work only with clients. The first one works only during the day in a 5/2 mode, the second one only at night 5/2, and the third one in a 4/3 mode. But sometimes at night, sometimes during the day, replacing other colleagues when they have days off. The pay for the 4/3 mode is more modest, because there are fewer work shifts, and this means only one thing.

If you try to get a job, then with a high probability you will get inconvenient shifts for yourself. Either only night work, or your sleep schedule will go crazy due to constant changes in modes, and also with a lower salary. But, let's say, you still want to get this vacancy. How do people get it at all? Really through an ad? There are three main options for getting a job. Either through connections, which is unlikely, or by going through the path of a courier and working for at least a few months, or if you already have work experience.

As a rule, this vacancy is most often filled by couriers who have a penchant for communicating with clients. Understanding of the work and at least a banal knowledge of Russian at the level of a seventh-grader. Therefore, it will not be possible to just drop in on the vacancy. It is almost impossible to gain work experience without working as a courier, and stores off the street do not like to hire people for their online team, since typical Darknet visitors are often very far from understanding the rules of marketplaces, the characteristics of the clientele and many other small factors that all experienced operators know about.

Even a banal check of the treasure for the probability of not being found is beyond the power of the vast majority of people. After all, only a person with experience knows why treasures under windowsills are bad. There are quite a few such small examples, I do not want to dwell on them, but this is in fact a typical job in technical support. Even the scripts used are similar and the same type. After all, the problems are often similar, and it is enough to simply copy and paste the answers, rather than invent new ones. Still, the work is not a piece of cake.

To get a decent salary, you will literally have to live near a computer, and most likely in a not very pleasant sleep mode, and also constantly communicate with the typical drug market public, who will often come to you in a high state. But you can also go to jail for something like this, we'll talk about that a little later. On the topic of online counteraction by our security forces. What marketplaces do you think have been liquidated by the domestic Ministry of Internal Affairs or the FSB over the past decade?

You don't have to guess. The security forces chalked up RAMP and HYDRA to their account. However, there is a nuance. RAMP at the time of its decline was first under a DDOS attack, which is not typical for any law enforcement agency, because DDOS itself is always illegal. Moreover, Hydra itself later stated that the death of RAMP was actually their doing, and it was the three-headed marketplace that received the main benefit from the elimination of a competitor. In addition, there are still many rumors around RAMP, like the founder got hooked on opiates, and the project itself lived out its last days after his death, but let's not go into details.

If we talk about Hydra, then the situation is twofold. In fact, it was the German police who pulled the switch in 2022. Yes, the Russian side also took part, but the arrests and confiscations of servers began only after the West initiated it. Apparently, domestic security forces really did some work, but whatever one may say, Hydra was turned off from Germany, not from Russia.

All this makes one think about the definitely weak development of law enforcement agencies' schemes in relation to the Darknet. On the streets they are already quite good at catching both warehouses and couriers, there are many cameras everywhere, and the cops themselves know the names of the most popular sites and even know how to go there, sometimes even organizing setups on the caches. But there are no ways to liquidate the sites with the presence of the organizers and participants.

All the available cases directly indicate that while TOR is an excellent protection and a weak point of domestic law enforcement agencies, or our favorite theory, they are all protected, ultimately I will have to answer the main question, how long do the operators live? When I realized that I couldn't find any objective and logical factors by which they could find an operator and raid his place, I decided to look into criminal cases against such people and discovered a rather interesting fact. Imagine, I couldn't find a single case online where a shop operator was jailed solely for his activities in technical support of the shop.

These admissions are always connected with something else: someone worked part-time as a courier, someone was caught taking a dose for personal use, someone had a breakup with a girlfriend and she snitched to the cops. They accept such people in any way, but not for their main activity. In all the cases discovered, it was something accompanying, so I quite reasonably draw the conclusion. Today, in Russia and the CIS, they don't really accept operators if they are just smart and don't work as stash men, don't tell everyone about their position in the shop and don't shoot TikToks at work.

And this time, if you really can't catch them, let me joke, they live up to 40 years. Depression inevitably sets in due to overtime, apathy, night shifts provoke the appearance of severe chronic diseases and even cancer, and relatively low incomes will not help to cure all this later.

It seems to me that the work itself is definitely not worth it, considering how harmful it is to live near a computer, spending most of your life in front of a monitor in incomprehensible sleep modes. This activity is much worse from a social point of view, and not because you can get into jail for it. Going to the zone of administration of stores on the Darknet is really not easy, in Russia there are no decent ways to find such people yet, but losing the best years of your life in such a position with such requirements seems completely absurd.

Therefore, I definitely do not advise striving to become a drug market operator, since this is a fairly ordinary position with vague prospects for further growth, the path to which lies through luck and the work of a stash man with no guarantees of promotion, and even if it works out, a year in such conditions is fraught with the development of mental deviations. And this is clearly not the kind of career success that is worth striving for. Even in the legal sector, it is much easier to find more decent conditions, including remote work.

Stay away from crime, and I'm leaving. I'm leaving beautifully.
 
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