Criminals are disguising cross-country drugs shipments as Amazon and eBay deliveries .
Detectives have busted supply networks said to have transported illicit substances - and the cash profits - under the guise of deliveries sent via the online retailers.
In some cases gangs are thought to have used official courier firms to transport their goods.
Drugs operations typically use a network of their own members to fuel large-scale enterprises.
In supply schemes where a city firm floods the markets of other towns and cities, it tends to fall to lower-ranking associates to ferry drugs to the target area and return with the cash made peddling misery on the streets.
Many vehicles used in these schemes have hidden compartments used to stash the cargo in case they are stopped by search teams.
But the sharing of intelligence between neighbouring police forces and the UK's network automatic number plate recognition network means taking to the roads carries significant risk.
Now there is evidence gangs are going beyond secret compartments and hanging shirts in the car to look like travelling businessmen - a trick that has actually been used by some couriers.
Just this week police released an image showing how a drugs gang known as 'Scouse Porky' disguised a stash in a box covered in an Amazon logo.
Led from Merseyside, the outfit targeted addicts in Bournemouth in a ruthless heroin and cocaine operation built on exploitation.
Detectives tracking their exploits found the parcel, which was filled with £25,000 wrapped in bundles of £20 notes, in a stop and search operation.
A Wirral-led drugs gang led whose leaders were jailed at the end of last year is believed to have gone further.
The multi-million pound cocaine, MDMA, heroin and amphetamine conspiracy was brought down with the help of high-ranking member-turned 'supergrass' .
Detailing how the gang operated, the police informer referred to sending cardboard boxes of drugs, packaged to look like an eBay delivery, with legitimate couriers on three different occasions.
High-profile busts show guns are also being posted to Merseyside - 14 were seized by detectives probing a Bulgaria to Wirral smuggling plot that led to raids last year.
And four pistols destined for Liverpool were intercepted by US Homeland Security - who then tipped off police.
They replaced the guns, hidden inside a speaker, with a camera and that captured the reaction of those who ordered the shipment as they opened the parcel.
