Here’s a riddle: How can a Registrar with only 0.2% global domain name market share have become the Registrar for between 33% and 44% of all non-spam rogue online pharmacies?
That’s the question that our report on Internet.bs sought to answer. (A smaller version with reduced image quality is here for slow connections.)
What’s In the Report?
In this report, we share how LegitScript posed as an organized cybercrime network called “Pay-Rx.biz” preparing to create thousands of websites selling counterfeit drugs and controlled substances like Vicodin without a prescription. We approached Internet.bs, an ICANN-accredited Registrar, and explained that global regulatory authorities, including the US Food and Drug Administration and Interpol, had previously shut down our Internet pharmacies for safety reasons –– but we wanted to register thousands of domains to continue our illicit pharmaceutical sales.
Despite being informed about the illicit nature of our business, Internet.bs was glad to help, emphasizing that it would ignore any notifications from drug safety authorities, and even suggesting ways for us to better protect our rogue online pharmacy network.
We went on to register with Internet.bs over one hundred seventy-five domain names such as controlled-drugs.net and oxycodonenoprescription.com that appeared to be selling products like Vicodin and Xanax without a prescription. (Note, of course, that the 175+ domains we created were not included in the 33% calculation referenced above. Note also that after catching wind of this report two days ago from a reporter, Internet.bs quickly suspended or deleted those domain names, replacing the WhoIs information with text stating that the websites were shut down for illicit drug sales.)
Our report shows that Internet.bs’ pharmaceutical cybercrime-friendly stance rises all the way to the top of the company. Our undercover email traffic ultimately culminated in the company’s President, Marco Rinaudo, providing his personal cell phone for personal assistance and offering suggestions on how to better protect our rogue pharma domains –– even after we explained directly to Mr. Rinaudo that our drugs were falsified and included controlled substances sold without a prescription.
Why Did We Issue This Report?
LegitScript’s typical approach is to work constructively and confidentially with companies to help prevent the misuse of their platforms by rogue online pharmacies. But this situation was different, because –– as we show –– Internet.bs is knowingly helping and protecting rogue online pharmacy networks.
Internet.bs currently identifies itself as having about 450,000 domain names –– that’s just about 0.2% of the total 225 million that Verisign recently estimated exist. But about one in three rogue online pharmacies in LegitScript’s database are registered with Internet.bs. If anything, our figures may be low: an analysis of the “not recommended” online pharmacies listed by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy indicates that nearly 44% of those that are active and still online are with Internet.bs.
It’s reasonable to ask whether those figures are a coincidence, or something more intentional.
On over a dozen occasions spanning back to late 2010, LegitScript reached out to Internet.bs to notify the company of hundreds of rogue pharmacies using its services and, later, that it was becoming the leading sponsoring Registrar of online pharmacrime. In addition to receiving no response, Internet.bs’ rogue online pharmacy market share continued to climb – in fact, we noticed a troubling trend of rogue pharmacies that were shutdown by other Registrars transferring services to Internet.bs.
Running Out of Ways to Describe Illegality
As Pay-Rx.biz, we literally ran out of ways to highlight the illicit nature of our business to Internet.bs. Stating that we planned to register thousands of domain names, we divulged that we were selling unapproved drugs; that these included “our own formulation” (counterfeit versions) of cancer medications falsely marketed as the real thing; that we sold OxyContin and other addictive medications without a prescription; and that our websites had already been shut down by multiple countries’ drug safety authorities, including Interpol and the FDA.
Pay-Rx.biz email to Internet.bs
In fact, we even pointed Internet.bs to the FDA’s website, where over 200 rogue online pharmacies that had been the target of an Interpol-led initiative called Operation Pangea were listed as having sold unapproved drugs and drugs without a prescription. That had been our online pharmacy network, we explained –– could we re-register those domain names to continue our illicit business? Internet.bs readily agreed.
Even after explaining to Internet.bs that our drugs were unapproved cancer formulations with a “different formulation from the labeled product,” we were able to register websites such as:
- brand-name-fda-approved-drugs.com
- buycialis20mg.info
- buying-vicodin.com
- controlled-drugs.net
- cure-your-cancer.co.uk
- genuine-anti-cancer-drugs.eu
- genuine-anti-cancer-drugs.fr
- genuine-anti-cancer-drugs.info
- genuine-anti-cancer-drugs.it
- hydrocodoneonline.biz
- legit-and-safe-drugs.biz
- legitimate-eu-pharmacy.eu
- legitimate-uk-pharmacy.co.uk
- legitimate-us-pharmacy.us
- licensed-eu-pharmacy.eu
- licensed-uk-pharmacy.co.uk
- licensed-us-pharmacy.us
- nonprescriptionphentermine.us
- noprescriptionrequired.asia
- noprescriptionrequired.biz
- oxycodonenoprescription.com
Finally, we even posted rogue online pharmacy content on some of the websites (e.g., clearly selling pharmaceuticals without a prescription) and directed Internet.bs to the links. The consistent response: No problem.
The Punchline
The facts that over one-third of the world’s rogue online pharmacy domain names are with one Registrar; over 50% are with two Registrars; and just ten Registrars account for 71% of all rogue online pharmacies shows that a small percentage of Registrars account for an unacceptably high proportion of drug-related cybercrime. Here, Internet.bs leads the way.
