Owned by Chico's FAS Inc., White House Black Market offers chic, sophisticated apparel and accessories. Its consumer focus is women over 25 with moderate to high household incomes.

In the new National Geographic series "Trafficked," award-winning investigative journalist Mariana Van Zeller pulls back the curtain on black markets across the world.

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This illegal trade takes place in secret, or in the dark, hence the name “black market.” Because black-market trade occurs “off the books,” so to speak, it represents a whole sector of a country's economy that cannot accurately be measured.

Because tax evasion or participation in a black market activity is illegal, participants attempt to hide their behavior from the government or regulatory authority. Cash is the preferred medium of exchange in illegal transactions since cash transactions are less-easily traced.

The goods and services offered in a black market can be illegal, meaning their purchase and sale are prohibited by law, or they can be legal but transacted to avoid taxes. Illegal markets are also known as illegal markets, shadow markets, or underground markets.

Illegal economy participants produce and distribute prohibited goods and services, such as drugs, weapons, and prostitution. The "unreported economy" circumvents or evades institutionally established fiscal rules as codified in the tax code.

A black market is a transaction platform, whether physical or virtual, where goods or services are exchanged illegally. What makes the market "black" can either be the illegal nature of the goods and services themselves, the illegal nature of the transaction or both.

Pricing. Goods and services acquired illegally and/or transacted for in an illegal manner may exchange above or below the price of legal market transactions: They may be cheaper than legal market prices. The supplier does not have to pay for production costs and/or taxes.

Violations of the tax code involving income tax evasion constitute membership in the unreported economy. Because tax evasion or participation in a black market activity is illegal, participants attempt to hide their behavior from the government or regulatory authority.

The underground market's many drawbacks include the risk of fraud, the possibility of violence, and being saddled with counterfeit goods or adulterated products, which is especially dangerous in the case of medications.

Black markets allow people to exchange products or services prohibited by their governments. They emerge when sellers want to evade taxes on certain goods. As a result, these transactions are unrecorded so that both sellers and buyers don't need to pay any money to their government.