History Main / BlackMarket

* The Generic Terrorist Faction in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals'' has the Black Market as a building for researching weapon upgrades, which as a bonus generates a steady stream of income.

* A black market is the beginning point of the Literature/NeroWolfe story "Before I Die", published in the {{omnibus}} volume ''Trouble In Triplicate''. It's set in 1946, after UserfulNotes/WorldWarII, but with food rationing still in full effect. When a crime boss tries to hire Wolfe to stop a blackmailer, Wolfe declares that he'll accept the case only if he's given access to the meat black market as part of his fee. The crime boss agrees and provides a phone number of a man "who might have meat", and the necessary password.

* ''Film/IronMan1'': [[spoiler:Stane]] has been selling weapons to the Ten Rings organization behind Tony's back.

* ''VideoGame/SeikenDensetsu3'' has a black market located in Bizen, the merchant city. Open only at night, it's the only place where you can buy spell-replicating items.

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* One of the earlier examples is found, of all games, in ''VideoGame/KidIcarus''. The Black Marketeer's goods are both more expensive, and in many ways more useful than the stuff you get from the normal shopkeeper. You could also find a credit card that would allow you to buy an item from him you couldn't afford, but you wouldn't gain any more money until you paid the balance off. Even worse, the second world in the game featured thieves that could steal your powerups... guess where they showed up?
* There's a fence in each ''VideoGame/QuestForGlory'' game[[labelnote:*]]except the third[[/labelnote]] where thieving types can unload their loot. In the first and fifth game, they also sell useful thieving tools.
* If you choose to use weapons in ''VideoGame/DeathRally'', then you will visit the black market before each race. The market tends to sell items that are double edged swords, like rocket fuel that makes you go fast, but damages the your car when used.
* There are fences in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion''. There's also a vendor called Shady Sam who is dressed in all black, hangs around outside a city wall and sells illegal goods.
* One-Eyed Sam's in the ''VideoGame/NetHack'' variants ''Slash'EM'' and ''[=UnNetHack=]''.
* The Generic Terrorist Faction in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals'' has the BlackMarket as a building for generating money and for researching weapon upgrades.
* There's a very, very small one in Tancred's in ''Summoner'', but the only place you get illegal goods is from him.

* ''Angband'' and most of its variants have black markets in the town. The black market can sell any item in the game--but at a substantial markup.
* The ''VideoGame/WildArms'' series has black markets in every game, traditionally in the form of a shop hidden within a normal shop, often requiring you to have to have some sort of authorization to interact with (in the form of a Black Pass, which oddly enough is found in a random treasure box in the middle of a dungeon). In the earlier games, they simply sold rare things that you couldn't buy elsewhere (like healing items), but in the fourth and fifth games they started selling the best equipment in the game... at the cost of your characters' levels rather than money. Cue [[LevelGrinding Power Leveling.]]
** In ''VideoGame/WildArms2'' the black market is the only way you can get healing items without winning them (very rarely) from enemies.

* ''VideoGame/{{Tropico}} 2'' has a literal version in which the Black Market is a marketplace-type structure you can construct on the coast that allows you to buy weapons for piracy.
** The third game allowed the player to sell weapons to "everyone", (presumably the black market) which would lower relations with the superpowers. The fourth game didn't give you an option on where one could sell the weapons too, but making assault weapons or landmines would end up in the wrong hands, which would also upset the global powers.
* In ''VideoGame/CityOfVillains'', the player-driven marketplace is called the Black Market. Imagine that.
* Both of the ''{{Mercenaries}}'' games have these. In the first game, there's the Merchant of Menace, whose prices depend on your current standing with [[TheMafiya the Russian mafia]] (get on their good side and you'll get discounts; get on their bad side and you can't even use the service). In the sequel, it's the Caribbean gangsters who play this role.
* There is one in ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheLastSpecter''. This one deserves special mention because [[spoiler:it is run entirely by ''children'']].
* The browser game ''VideoGame/BlackMarket'' unsurprisingly features a black market or two.
* Barnabas' Black Market in ''[[VideoGame/AncientDomainsOfMystery ADOM]]'' is the only general-store style shop in the early game. It often has good stuff, but the prices are quite steep [[spoiler:unless you're the head of the Thieves' Guild.]]
* In ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' and its {{Remake}} ''Sonic Adventure 2 Battle'', there's the Black Chao Market. Both function the same way - it allows players to pay rings for Chao toys, specialized Chao Eggs and even brand new soundbites for the main screen. However, it's how you got there that differed - in the original, it was an actual Sega-ran website. In ''[=SA2B=]'', it was a market that you went into in the Chao Garden hub world.

* The Black Market Auction House in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' acts as a source of items removed from the game, high-end items that are difficult to acquire legitimately, and rare vanity items such as mounts. Both factions are able to visit and bid on items. It was introduced partly to act as a gold sink, as even the least expensive items still cost several thousand golds for the first bid.
* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' has a black market run by Crazy Earl, who sells inventory upgrades that increase the amount of ammo/guns you can carry in exchange for Eridium, the game's [[GreenRocks Purple Rocks]].
* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'', as soon as you arrive in Tokyo's Ueno region, you will find an old man selling various odds and ends. Chat with the old man and correctly repeat the password he gives you to access the local Black Market, where you can buy armor and weaponry. There's one in every city visited afterwards, except Ikebukuro (everyone left the place already).

* Going down a trap door leading to a crawl space in VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac Rebirth has a small chance to open a path to a black market, where you can buy a variety of items with heart containers.
* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' games include black markets to buy weapons in Grand Theft Auto 3, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto 4 and its expansions.
** In ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII'' and ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity'' you buy weapons from Phil Cassidy at a certain store from each game.
** In ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' and its expansions you buy weapons from Little Jacob's car by calling him up.
* ''VideoGame/SeikenDensetsu3'' has a black market located in Bizen, the merchant city. Open only at night, it's the only place where you can buy spell-replicating items.
* ''VideoGame/XCOM2'' has you running LaResistance in a VichyEarth, and you can turn to the Black Market for supplies, useful gear, and personnel. Wether they are sympathetic to your efforts but lacking in resources, profiteers dealing in sales of alien alloys, power sources, and [[BreadEggsMilkSquick dead bodies]], or straight up TheSyndicate that XCOM allies with out of desperation isn't made clear.

* ''The Bronze Horseman'', by Paullina Simons. During the siege of Leningrad, Tatiana goes with her mother to buy food from a black marketeer, but her mother is outraged at the high prices and walks out. Later as things go FromBadToWorse she gives Tatiana all their money to buy whatever she can, but by that stage there's barely any food to sell.

* In the British [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt apocalyptic movie]] ''Film/TheDayTheEarthCaughtFire'' (1961) the rising heat levels create a black market in water, and one character catches typhoid from it. Likewise in the ''Film/DaleksInvasionEarth2150AD'' (1966) a black marketeer exchanges food for gold and jewelery that's been picked up in the now abandoned villages of Britain, even though [[FridgeLogic such things would now be worthless]].

** Lampshaded by the band InExtremo in an interview. When they played in Mexico City, they saw merchandise of themselves that they've never seen before.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': The Night Market in Numeria's capital city Starfall, an irregular and secret meeting where the city's thieves and scavengers gather to sell the technological artifacts they've plundered from the wrecks of the spaceship littering the nation -- from flare guns and stub batons to advanced medical tech, laser weaponry and AI personality chips -- outside of the stranglehold that the Technic Legue enforces on the sale and possession of technology.

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* In ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' a Black Market is standard rather than exception in the Hive cities and major spaceports in the Imperium of Man.
* The underground enclave of Skullport in the ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' thrives on this trope, being the site where Underdark trade routes and surface-world black markets intersect.

* In TabletopGame/{{Traveller}} ''Interstaller Wars'', the Vilani ''duraag'' serves this purpose. This is a generic term for all black-market activities in the Vilani Imperium. Theoretically all trade in the Vilani Imperium is dominated by the three Shangarim (major castes). However it is common enough to secretly trade in the duraag. Marginalized people trade there. Sometimes as well important grandees, when short of supplies will arrange to make exchanges there. So in a sense it is "another branch of the empire". When a Terran IntrepidMerchant vessel arrives carrying the swashbuckling [=PCs=] to smuggle, raid, and gain glory and gold in the Vilani Imperium they will tend to go here.
* The elven markets in TabletopGame/DarkSun, where you can even buy prohibited magic.

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* ''VideoGame/{{XCOM2}}'' has you running LaResistance in a VichyEarth, and you can turn to the Black Market for supplies, useful gear, and personnel. Wether they are sympathetic to your efforts but lacking in resources, profiteers dealing in sales of alien alloys, power sources, and [[BreadEggsMilkSquick dead bodies]], or straight up TheSyndicate that XCOM allies with out of desperation isn't made clear.

* ''Film/Tomorrow never dies ''Series opens with James Bond infiltrating--and destroying--a terrorist arms bazaar.

* In ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' the Black Market of Paris is an underground BazaarOfTheBizarre, however since the Master is aware of its existence and keeps an eye on it many of the things sold there fall into more of a grey area rather than being completely illegal, like parts scavenged off ruined clanks in the wastelands which are legally considered stolen but since they're from abandoned wrecks it's not like they were stolen from someone.

** In ''WildArms 2'' the black market is the only way you can get healing items without winning them (very rarely) from enemies.

In RealLife, the term is generally used to describe the encompassing gestalt: a collection of individuals and covert operations which can be spread across a wide geographic range, the archetypal example probably being the vast array of illicit transactions which occurred in [[UsefulNotes/TheHomeFront Great Britain during World War II]]; in that particular case, it was rationed food-types which were being bought and sold. This is often the case in fiction as well, but sometimes you will encounter a ''literal'' Black Market, a [[WelcomeToEvilMart covert shopping emporium]] complete with merchants hawking their dubious wares from established stalls. This latter type is often a subset of the BazaarOfTheBizarre, with ''everything'' for sale and the outright illegal stuff lurking around the edges.

* In a famous GunPorn scene in ''Film/TaxiDriver'' a smooth-talking salesman offers handguns from a suitcase to the protagonist along with anything else he might want, such as drugs. He refuses the drugs but buys himself a small arsenal. The scene gets homaged in other movies like ''Film/GodBlessAmerica'' and ''Film/DeathSentence''.

* In a famous scene in ''Film/TaxiDriver'' a smooth-talking salesman offers handguns from a suitcase to the protagonist along with anything else he might want, such as drugs. He refuses the drugs but buys himself a small arsenal. The scene gets homaged in other movies like ''Film/GodBlessAmerica'' and ''Film/DeathSentence''. Another vigilante movie ''Film/TheBraveOne'' forgoes the GunPorn; Erica goes to buy a gun but is told there's a thirty day waiting limit. A customer notices her look of desperation and approaches her outside the store, offering a Kar K-9 automatic for a thousand dollars, throwing in a box of ammunition and an impromptu instruction on how to load and fire it.

* In a famous scene in ''Film/TaxiDriver'' a smooth-talking salesman offers handguns from a suitcase to the protagonist along with anything else he might want, such as drugs. He refuses the drugs but buys himself a small arsenal. The scene gets homaged in other movies like ''Film/GoldBlessAmerica'' and ''Film/DeathSentance''.

HonestJohn, TheScrounger and/or TheRat will often be found thriving in this environment, but s/he'll just be manning one of the (literal or metaphorical) stalls; the ultimate power will usually be in the hands of TheSyndicate. Unless it all comes full circle, and the whole thing is just another branch of the The Empire...

* The various "businesses" running on the TOR anonymity network. Located in the so-called "deep web" (the part of the internet that cannot be reached by regular search engines), the traders are protected by some of the most powerful encryption softwares publicly available and transactions are done via Bitcoin, a (practically) untraceable digital currency (or some other cryptocurrency). The most famous of the TOR shops are Silk Road and The Armory, specializing in illicit drugs and weapons, respectively. If you look a little harder, you can find just about ''anything'' you want down there, from pirated video games to child porn to hitmen for hire, legality be damned.

* The various "businesses" running on the TOR anonymity network. Located in the so-called "deep web" (the part of the internet that cannot be reached by regular search engines), the traders are protected by some of the most powerful encryption softwares publicly available and transactions are done via Bitcoin, an untraceable digital currency. The most famous of the TOR shops are Silk Road and The Armory, specializing in illicit drugs and weapons, respectively. If you look a little harder, you can find just about ''anything'' you want down there, from pirated video games to child porn to hitmen for hire, legality be damned.

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': Somewhat parodied when Lois and Peter are trapped in Cuba without passports. They find the Black Market, which is pretty much a UsefulNotes/{{Walmart}} with bombs and other weapons. They even had a "Black Market Club", 10% off your first purchase! Sadly for Peter, they do not accept bits of string as bartering objects.

In RealLife, the term is generally used to describe the encompassing gestalt: a collection of individuals and covert operations which can be spread across a wide geographic range, the archetypal example probably being the vast array of illicit transactions which occurred in [[TheHomeFront Great Britain during World War II]]; in that particular case, it was rationed food-types which were being bought and sold. This is often the case in fiction as well, but sometimes you will encounter a ''literal'' Black Market, a [[WelcomeToEvilMart covert shopping emporium]] complete with merchants hawking their dubious wares from established stalls. This latter type is often a subset of the BazaarOfTheBizarre, with ''everything'' for sale and the outright illegal stuff lurking around the edges.