When you think of the black market, images of narcotics, firearms, and human trafficking often come to mind. Yet a whole suite of bizarre thriving trades operate in the shadows, moving everything from cuddly puppies to ancient fossils and raking in billions each year. Below we dive into ten of the most unexpected yet lucrative underground economies on the planet.
Bizarre Thriving Markets Explained
10 Puppies
In the United Kingdom, the appetite for designer dog breeds has exploded. A pure‑bred Yorkshire Terrier can command as much as £2,000 from a reputable breeder, yet criminal networks undercut that price by importing pups from Irish and Eastern European puppy mills for as little as €100 each.
The conditions in those mills are horrendous – dead animals are left to rot in cages, and the living puppies are sold without vaccinations or microchips. Despite the cruelty, the legal penalty for animal endangerment in the UK is a modest six‑month jail term. Nevertheless, the illicit puppy market is estimated at roughly £100 million a year, proving that demand trumps conscience.
9 Dissertations
Academic fraud has become a full‑blown epidemic in Russia. Over the past few years, more than a thousand influential Russians have been exposed for plagiarising their university dissertations.
The scandal erupted when a loosely‑organized group of activists called Dissernet began using plagiarism‑detection software to scan thousands of theses. To date they have logged over 5,600 instances of cheating and published reports on more than 1,300. A swarm of so‑called “academic consulting” firms now peddle stolen research on polished websites. Those caught range from bureaucrats and police officials to university heads – and even President Vladimir Putin has faced accusations of lifting sections from his 2006 Ph.D. thesis.
8 Amber
The global amber trade tops $1 billion annually, and a staggering 90 percent of the world’s reserves sit in Kaliningrad, Russia. The region’s economy is depressed, wages are low, and roughly half the able‑bodied workforce turns to illegal amber mining to make ends meet.
One lawmaker estimates that smugglers haul 350–400 tons of amber each year – ten times the legal output. Flawless nuggets can fetch more than their weight in gold, while specimens with prehistoric insects trapped inside command five‑ or six‑figure sums.
7 Tiger Parts
Asian demand for tiger body parts has shifted from traditional medicine to luxury indulgences such as tiger‑bone wine – a concoction made by soaking a tiger’s skeleton in rice wine – and high‑end fashion skins.
One Thai temple, home to over 140 endangered tigers and a $3 million tourism draw, was recently implicated in the illegal tiger trade. Although Thai law requires every tiger to be micro‑chipped, former staff admit the chips are often cut out and the animals sold on the black market. Subsequent investigations uncovered missing tigers, un‑chipped specimens, and even a frozen carcass hidden in a freezer.
6 Manuka Honey
Manuka honey, harvested from bees that pollinate the manuka bush in New Zealand or the jellybush tree in Australia, commands premium prices – around $80 per jar – thanks to its touted antibacterial properties.
There are no secret farms; instead, organized thieves have turned to outright robbery. In Sydney, Australia, coordinated heists have seen dozens of jars lifted from supermarkets, salons and other retailers, costing businesses thousands of dollars and feeding a thriving black‑market supply chain.
5 Botox
Only eight pharmaceutical firms worldwide are licensed to produce Botox, the anti‑wrinkle marvel that also treats migraines. When a mysterious figure known only as “Rakhman” began offering massive discounts on Botox in St. Petersburg salons, many were skeptical but still bought.
Rakhman unlocked a massive illegal market for counterfeit Botox in Russia, where the drug can legally be administered by non‑physicians without a prescription. The active ingredient – botulinum toxin type A – is lethal in minuscule doses, and the seller allegedly sourced it from a Chechen supplier, hinting at a production line that could also feed terrorist groups.
4 Execution Drugs
In 2015, Pfizer bought Hospira, the sole U.S. maker of drugs used in capital‑punishment executions. Within a year, Pfizer banned its products from the death‑penalty market, a move hailed by abolitionists but blind to the hundreds of scheduled executions lacking legal drug sources.
The ban forced states to import execution drugs illegally. One batch of the anesthetic sodium thiopental, sourced from an unregulated British firm, was linked to botched executions in at least two states after Arizona loaned it to other jurisdictions. The DEA eventually seized Georgia’s entire supply after multiple painful, failed executions.
3 Rabies Vaccines
While rabies claims one or two lives annually in the United States, China sees thousands of deaths each year, and a thriving counterfeit vaccine market fuels the crisis.
Chinese e‑commerce giant Taobao is riddled with sellers advertising cheap rabies vaccines, each boasting a government licence that, in reality, no authorised dealer is permitted to display on the platform. These bogus shots are produced in unknown labs, ranging from partially effective to outright fraudulent. In 2016, authorities arrested dozens of suspects tied to a ring that moved up to $90 million worth of fake vaccines.
2 Fossils
In April 2012, U.S. agents nabbed Eric Prokopi on suspicion of operating a one‑man black market for dinosaur fossils. A frequent traveler to Mongolian dig sites, Prokopi shipped finds to Britain and then on to the United States, believing his dealings were lawful.Some of his sales were lucrative – a fully reassembled skeleton fetched $1 million at auction from a Manhattan real‑estate developer. The high‑profile transaction attracted Mongolian officials, leading to Prokopi’s arrest. His cooperation unveiled a sprawling illegal fossil trade, sparking investigations across three U.S. states. Despite facing a potential 17‑year sentence, he was sentenced to just over three months.
1 Pangolins
Pangolins – solitary, nocturnal mammals without any living relatives – are the most trafficked animal on the planet. Their scales fetch high prices for use in traditional medicine, cosmetics and even as a culinary delicacy.
Because many pangolin habitats lie in regions with weak or nonexistent enforcement, illegal poaching has exploded. A single shipment seized by Hong Kong police in June 2016 was valued at over $1 million, representing just a fraction of the global trade. In the same period, the International Fund for Animal Welfare reported 11,000 pangolins poached, cementing the species as the world’s most illegally trafficked mammal.