With just a couple of clicks and a fistful of bitcoins, it's trivial to buy an AK-47 or a pistol on the dark web. At least, that's the idea presented when casually scrolling through the digital shelves of online markets.

But the reality is that sourcing a weapon from the dark web can actually be fairly difficult—so much so that several markets have stopped stocking weapons altogether.

One impetus for that is the heavy presence of scammers, who create fake accounts to dupe gullible gun hunters out of their money.

“I'm just kinda addicted to the scamming part. It's too easy,” one scammer told Motherboard in an email chat. The scammer used to operate under the handle “Bartsmit” on AlphaBay, a popular market that sells stolen data, weapons, and drugs, among other goods. Today the scammer is still ripping people off, but under a different identity.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/scams-and-undercover-cops-are-denting-the-dark-web-gun-trade