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179 Arrested in Global Dark Web Takedown

200 points by prostoalex 6y ago

aty268 6y ago
I've always wondered, why do these software engineers take such risks building and setting up these illegal marketplaces? I mean, are you really going to make that much more than you would as a regular software engineer at a company?
- mkoryak 6y ago
  Why do criminals do crimes? If you want to break the law and you happen to be a SWE, I don't think it makes much difference.
  - HenryBemis 6y ago
    Criminals will do crime. The thing that always buffles me is WHO buys heroin, cocaine, weed, etc. over the internet.. Aren't they scared that DHL, FedEx, USPS will scan/sniff the packages? Or they use "Drug delivery express"? Or they buy online and they meet someone in a parking lot for the pick-up? Why not buy then and there then? As we see in the movies, most drug trafficking is a drive-by thing.. is it not?
    - SCHiM 6y ago
      Having drugs sent to you is not proof that you bought them. I mean, it'd be too easy to blackmail someone if I could just send you a 'package' and then drop a tip @OurFriendsInBlue, no? That said, if you keep getting busted with marching powder in your magazines, at some point people will stop accepting that excuse ;)
      - ChrisKnott 6y ago
        Having drugs sent to you is evidence you bought them. Maybe not conclusive evidence by itself, but certainly good evidence. Almost certainly there would be corroborating evidence such as drugs paraphernalia, financial transactions, positive blood test, internet history, etc You are unlikely to get caught because you are unlikely to have the package intercepted. If it is, you should expect to be convicted.
      - HenryBemis 6y ago
        I was misunderstood, my bad, bad writing. My question/wondering was on: why the hell would someone buy drugs online, and how to they accept the risk on consuming these when they arrive. Buying an iPhone cable online is a risk I can accept. Buying heroin online (I don't do drugs) it goes beyond me on the risk acceptance of such deed. I get it that darkweb has a scoring system like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, but heroin? Cocaine? Weed? It is not about "police can't charge you" it is about "who the hell is going to inject something that was bought on the darkweb in their veins?? What goes through their mind? I assume not much since these are people who buy heroin, online.. so that answers my question.
        SCHiM 6y ago
        Well it's a direct market, customer service is king. The sellers cannot really move their 'brand' from one market to another. An opportunist could reserve their username on another market, and users know that anyone could be behind that new account. They don't trust the name, only the reviews you have on your particular market. What I want to say is that the reputation of their anonymous brand is worth something, because they can't take it somewhere in a hurry and takes time to build (if you build it legitimately, it always seems easy to cheat with a bot). Reviews from other users, (who also have a visible reputation, to combat botting), are taken seriously. The markets themselves provide escrow, if you screw your users and don't have a high standing you're likely won't be receiving payment. This incentivizes sellers to provide a high level of customer service. "So, in order to attract customers in this high stakes and very competitive situation, you need the highest possible rating."[0] "This may help to explain why drugs bought on the dark web tend to be much purer than drugs bought on the street. "[0] [0]:https://unbabel.com/blog/customer-service-dark-web/ https://unbabel.com/blog/customer-service-dark-web/
        s-lambert 6y ago
        > The sellers cannot really move their 'brand' from one market to another. An opportunist could reserve their username on another market, and users know that anyone could be behind that new account. They don't trust the name, only the reviews you have on your particular market. Sellers can move their brand across markets with a different username because they would still have the same PGP key. There's even a search engine to find the same vendor on multiple markets by looking them up by their PGP key.
    - shajznnckfke 6y ago
      Low level purchasers don’t seem to be targeted in these busts. They are after the suppliers. The risk of buying from a darknet market is probably lower than buying from a local dealer, especially for a consumer who doesn’t have any connections. You could go looking for someone dealing on the street, but you won’t know if their stuff has five star reviews. Or you might just get mugged.
    - frower1 6y ago
      Not something I have firsthand experience of, but I believe that the sellers are rated in part on the quality of their delivery. It comes through regular post to the buyers door. But that’s no implication of crime so as a regular consumer it’s fairly safe. Aside from that, the quality of Darknet drugs is significantly better than street drugs. The drugs people (used to) buy on the street have been through a lot of hands and there’s often little substance left at the end. Also, who you going to complain to? At least with a marketplace, sellers are looking for good ratings. It’s also a lot cheaper. I’ve heard nothing but good reports from people buying online.
    - myself248 6y ago
      I don't think there are "criminals" as a type of person like "musicians", who are just compelled to do crime because there's an inner force that just makes their toe tap a certain way. Maybe some small fraction, I guess. But I think the majority of criminals are simply rational actors, who look at the incentives and the odds, assess them (sometimes wrongly), and do what seems sensible to achieve their goals. The goal is not "do crime", the goal is "make money" and the environment is structured such that crime makes money.
  - anemoiac 6y ago
    I'm not sure if this was your implication (I may be reading too far into your relatively succinct comment), but I don't think most "criminals" do crimes because they explicitly want to break the law. I would imagine that there are about as many potential reasons for doing things that happen to be against the law as there are for doing things that don't happen to be against the law. I'm not even all that sure what qualifies someone to be considered a "criminal." Is it simply breaking the law, which virtually everyone has done at some point? Is it getting caught committing a criminal act? Getting caught committing a felony-level offense? Is someone who smokes cannabis in Kansas (illegal) a criminal, but not someone who smokes cannabis across the state border with Colorado (legal)? What if the smoker from Kansas crosses the border into Colorado - are they no longer a criminal? What if the smoker from Colorado smoked cannabis before it became legal to so - did they stop being a criminal when cannabis was legalized? What if the smoker from Colorado walks across the border into Kansas - are they a criminal for having smoked cannabis in Colorado, given that doing so is illegal in Kansas? This list could continue, but it's probably already bordering on pedantic... Point being, if breaking the law is all it takes to be considered a criminal, aren't we all criminals?
- lobster45 6y ago
  Money! And they think they are smarter than those who failed
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  It's very lucrative and the competition is pretty inept so expectations are low. You can retire to thailand off the residuals. If you're a 20 year old who isn't looking forward to decades of corporate work that might not sound bad.
  - msikora 6y ago
    This was something that always boggled my mind how inept these guys sometimes were. In this business your life literally (and I mean literally) depends on good security and they would make some really rookie mistakes.
    - Enginerrrd 6y ago
      It's human. Mistakes can sometimes be really subtle and require only a moment's inattention but sound REALLY dumb when you look at it in fundamental terms. Christ, trained CIA field agents with funding and support staff have made some really stupid mistakes en par. Things like being tracked by metadata from not turning off their cell phone because they thought a chip bag was a good enough faraday cage. Ostensibly it sounds dumb, but that might have only been one time for 20 minutes or something that allowed the Italian investigators to connect the dots. Perfect security for a short time period with one incident is actually still really hard. When you make it a lifestyle going on for months/years, it's nearly impossible.
      - shiftpgdn 6y ago
        Many many CIA agents sent into China have disappeared. If an agency with the greatest set of resources on earth are getting busted regularly what hope does the average Joe software engineer have.
        croissants 6y ago
        > Many many CIA agents sent into China have disappeared. Source? This doesn't sound like the sort of thing with reliable public statistics?
- msikora 6y ago
  Most definitely a lot more than a regular software engineer. Alexandre Cazes was estimated to have a net worth of at least USD 23 mil, and that's a conservative estimate. This would all be in cryptocurrencies of course and you would have to find a way to money launder these assets. Another thing to consider is that many of these guys live in countries with cost of living much cheaper than USA (not even talking about Bay Area), Cazes himself was living in Thailand.
  - digianarchist 6y ago
    He’s dead now. Was it worth it?
    - pfundstein 6y ago
      Are you implying he didn't commit suicide?
      - digianarchist 6y ago
        Not at all.
    - msikora 6y ago
      It definitely wasn't worth it for him.
  - ShorsHammer 6y ago
    Alexandre Cazes is an interesting case that basically never gets mentioned in these threads. It's questionable whether he was doing it alone or even the head operator. But apparently it's all case closed now with no Dread Pirate Roberts type sensational court cases or extradition trial. Also which country had him executed? I'm very certain it wasn't Thailand.
    - pfundstein 6y ago
      Are you implying he didn't commit suicide[§]? § https://web.archive.org/web/20170714143352/https://www.deepdotweb.com/2017/07/14/alleged-alphabay-admin-found-dead-bangkok-jail/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170714143352/https://www.deepd... § http://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2017/07/12/dark-web-le-quebecois-arrete-en-thailande-sest-suicide-en-prison http://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2017/07/12/dark-web-le-quebecois-... § https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/report-alphabay-notorious-dark-web-drug-website-shuttered-by-feds/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/report-alphabay-... § http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/alphabay-suspected-cofounder-alexandre-cazes-found-dead-in-thai-jail-20170715-gxburv.html http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/alphabay-suspected-cof... § https://www.europol.europa.eu/newsroom/news/massive-blow-to-criminal-dark-web-activities-after-globally-coordinated-operation https://www.europol.europa.eu/newsroom/news/massive-blow-to-... § https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/alphabay-largest-online-dark-market-shut-down https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/alphabay-largest-online-dark-...
- redisman 6y ago
  In most of the world working as a SWE is a middle-class job. Six figure salaries and RSUs are really only a thing in a few top US and EU cities.
  - qes 6y ago
    Six figure (albeit lower end of that, and without RSUs) SWE jobs exist in quantity all over the U.S. There isn't a single state where you shouldn't expect to be getting a six figure salary with no more than 5 years working experience as an SWE - and I think saying even 5 years is generous.
- birdyrooster 6y ago
  I think you answered your own question as I am pretty sure they really do get paid that much more. The same thinking goes into starting a business or becoming self-employed. The people I have met doing those for longer than a year seem to make more than the people working full time jobs.
- bonestamp2 6y ago
  I think it probably comes down to a combination of Ego and/or Thrill. They think they are too smart to get caught and they get a thrill out of outsmarting people (until they're not). Whenever I see this it makes me think that making money by breaking the law is like playing a video game on cheat mode. Nearly anybody can make money illegally, but the consequences don't usually outweigh the benefits. So, it's almost pointless. The game that is much more gratifying is making lots of money by playing the game on hard mode.
- duxup 6y ago
  For some it has been highly profitable, and many of them have strongly libertarian style personal beliefs.
- vmception 6y ago
  Yes, you make a lot more and you don't actually get busted.
- user5994461 6y ago
  >>> I mean, are you really going to make that much more than you would as a regular software engineer at a company? Hell yeah. I mean, what companies could they possibly work for? Google? Accenture? These only have offices in a handful of cities across the planet. You have zero job prospects as a software engineer as a person living in countryside Asia or Latin America or even Europe outside of metro areas. You might as well try to build your own web business.
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
  > why do these software engineers take such risks I blame ageism in Tech. Where else should we go except jumping the Ättestupa[1][2] /s :-) I guess everyone is different, but if you read the story behind Paul LeRoux[3] there is a lot more to becoming a criminal (including personal hardship and a pre-existing proneness for Denning Kruger - which seems more rampant in our field than anywhere else). And like learning vi / emacs it's actually really hard, so once you get very good in this it's hard to stop (I'm trying too hard to be funny and understand my analogy sounds ludicrous but there are psychological concepts at work which connect difficulty/struggle of a task with whether we can identify with what we are doing and if it fulfills us. Ofc there is also that who else would do this kind of work if not a software/security engineer.) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwD7f5ZWhAk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwD7f5ZWhAk [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%84ttestupa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%84ttestupa [3] https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind
- tester34 6y ago
  Not everybody is living in USA or country with strong currency
- detritus 6y ago
  Not everyone focuses solely on cash in life, and for some the thought of becoming a 'regular software engineer at a company' might be existentially boring.
  - Loughla 6y ago
    This is the reason my regular dealer sold various items when I was in college. He figured he had the rest of his life to be boring, but the excitement of dealing was too tempting right now to turn down. I'm betting a lot of the people running these sorts of things are in that area; it's just too interesting to try and too much adrenaline at times. Also, are you named after just general detritus, or the Pratchett character?
    - detritus 6y ago
      ha, I quite like the idea of General Detritus! Just detritus generally. It's strange for me as I've been using it for so long now, my mind skips a beat and I feel like I've had a post update whenever I come across the word IRL :) I've actually just picked up my first ever Pratchett - "Small Gods" - after having somehow avoided reading him for the past 30 years! "Detritus was the first troll member of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch..." - I'll look forward to that, thanks!
blakesterz 6y ago
"Operation DisrupTor" The docs are here: https://www.justice.gov/opa/documents-related-september-22-2020-press-conference https://www.justice.gov/opa/documents-related-september-22-2... I assume there's at least something interesting in there about how they actually did the disruption. It'll be interesting to see the technical details once they come out. Maybe a "How we disrupted tor during Operation DisrupTor" talk at defcon next year :-)
- shuntress 6y ago
  This is based on half-remembered pseudo-technical details of how TOR works but my understanding is that the most effective way to compromise someone's connection through The Onion Router is to control their entrance and exit nodes. So my initial assumption is that the bulk of the work would be in gaining and confirming that control and the rest would likely be "trivial" analysis of traffic through those gateways.
  - rlt 6y ago
    > the most effective way to compromise someone's connection through The Onion Router is to control their entrance and exit nodes This seems like a big problem since there’s not much incentive, other than altruism, for most people to run Tor nodes, especially exit nodes which will draw a lot of unwanted attention from law enforcement. On the other hand, intelligence agencies have a large incentive to control a majority of Tor nodes. It’s also pretty telling that Tor was partially developed and funded by the US government.
    - im3w1l 6y ago
      > It’s also pretty telling that Tor was partially developed and funded by the US government. Times were different then. The US was fighting wars to topple dictators and spread democracy.
      - noir_lord 6y ago
        Now they seem to want to topple democracy and spread dictators.
intotheabyss 6y ago
What happens when someone creates a decentralized darknet marketplace that transacts using zero knowledge proofs? This is such a waste of resources. Just make all drugs legal and regulate them like anything else. How many times have I bought weed off a dealer in the last two years? The answer is zero, because I purchase my weed legally from a reputable company that follows all applicable regulations.
- onion2k 6y ago
  This is such a waste of resources. It's a very profitable waste of resources.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
    It's really not DEA budget 2B in 2018 Cash + property that can be liquidated: 340M in 2018
    - gruez 6y ago
      The implication is that it's profitable for the contractors, not for the public.
    - michaelmrose 6y ago
      It means the public lost 2.34B and DEA gained 2.34B
      - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        There are a lot of people on HN that would take serious issue with any implication that any given tax dollar has anything less than a net-neutral effect for the taxpayers as a whole. Oddly they seem to keep really quite when the topic of the war on drugs comes up.
msikora 6y ago
Do any of these darknet markets or services operators ever successfully "exit" to enjoy their ill-gotten spoils in retirement? Seems like they always get nailed in the end. Even the operator of Grams (darknet market search engine)and Helix (Bitcoin tumbler) who shut down his services in 2017 got arrested just this year. Seems like the heyday of Darknet markets was 5+ years ago and since then law enforcement started to win in a big way. Who got away? Maybe the operators of Agora? Who else?
- watwut 6y ago
  If they do exit scam first? Was any of those caught?
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    Isn't the idea that you setup something like this, and run it for a while, and then you bailout and sell it to someone else and they do the same? It's a game of hot potato. So long as you don't leave too much evidence and you launder your currencies correctly, only the last owner gets caught. Thats how the Dread Pirate Roberts got his name no?
    - wmf 6y ago
      The question is whether anyone has actually done that in reality rather than telling stories about the theory.
    - vkou 6y ago
      That a fascinating story that DPR told the judge (One of many), who did not believe one bit of it.
      - dylan604 6y ago
        "Because a judge" isn't necessarily the be-all one might wish it to be. A judge is just human and brings along their beliefs and knowledge or lack of to every case.
worldmerge 6y ago
I keep hearing about alternative WWW internets, I'm surprised TOR based shops haven't moved.
- torified 6y ago
  Like what? Tor itself is never the reason they were caught as far as anyone knows.
codezero 6y ago
The money they claim 6M for 200 arrests is a pretty darn low dollar per person claim - this is a really weak bust in my opinion, and I assume a lot of those arrests are really unlucky people who happened to slip into this net, but not cybercriminal masterminds, or drug lords. Let's celebrate when we catch the people who produce the shit, or even better, legalize as much of it as we can and establish social programs to help with awareness and recovery.
- roymurdock 6y ago
  Keep your eye on the Sackler/Purdue Pharma case [1]. Purdue steered over $13B directly to the Sackler family by aggressively marketing opiates, misinforming doctors and the public about their dangers, and giving medical software companies kickbacks to push more addictive long-release versions of their opiates to doctors. One company, Allscripts, was able to pay $145M to resolve criminal and civil kickback allegations [2]. They directly killed over 400,000 people between 1999 and 2017 and indirectly killed many more/caused unimaginable human suffering. The family is proposing to pay $3B over 7 years and an additional $1.5B by selling off another company they own. This is the real opiate crisis jackpot and the high-scale, high-powered, industrialized version of the crimes that are happening on the dark web. I'm sure there are more large companies and high powered individuals involved and agree that the 200 arrests/$6M is an infinitely tiny drop in the bucket, but it's way easier to prove and stick than the larger operations. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy-factbox/where-the-purdue-pharma-sackler-legal-saga-stands-idUSKBN1ZS1H3 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy-... [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-investigation-opioids-e/exclusive-oxycontin-maker-purdue-is-pharma-co-x-in-u-s-opioid-kickback-probe-sources-idUSKBN1ZR2RY https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-investigati...
  - codezero 6y ago
    Yep - I agree, small wins are easier, and especially if you can use buzzwords like we do in tech. It also leaves more option for agent corruption to bring some of that cash home. This possibly one reason why white collar crime is less punished (see: civil forfeiture - though more so that the likeliness of a successful court case is very low) - less money to take home because rich people will spend it all on lawyers if they have to, then use their connections to get right back on top.
ponker 6y ago
It’s hilarious how small these busts are. 179 people, 500 kg of drugs, $6.5 million of cash/crypto? $6.5 million probably doesn’t build the entryway to the “Sackler gallery.”
- grugagag 6y ago
  The Sacklers bought their own politicians and shared a part of the loot with the industry whereas small time crime never contributes into that pool and takes away profit from that. Think about it, people who buy drugs illegally could instead drop a few hundred dollars (without an insurance) on a doctors' visit to get the prescription prescription and a few hundred dollars on the actual drugs and they'd have the legal stamp on them - plus the warning not to operate any motorized vehicle on the label. :)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
froawayyes 6y ago
I sometimes enjoy taking psychedelics in a safe environment with good people and darknets are invaluable for sourcing them. I simply don't have enough contacts to be able to source them otherwise. I'm a tax paying and responsible citizen who knows how to use tor + tails + monero...and dang it...I'm going to. I have the right to control my consciousness as long as I don't harm others. If you are interested, start by searching for Dread in duckduckgo on the tor browser. Be careful. Measure 10x, cut once.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
seebetter 6y ago
Two of the biggest dark web criminals are serving a combined 16 1/2 years in federal prison. One is a former Secret Service agent and the other is a former DEA agent.
- ronyfadel 6y ago
  Any source on that?
  - DarthGhandi 6y ago
    Any real reason you can't google it other than being worried about the big G knowing what you looked up? https://www.wired.com/2016/02/corrupt-silk-road-investigator-re-arrested-trying-to-flee-the-us/ https://www.wired.com/2016/02/corrupt-silk-road-investigator...
jeremiahlee 6y ago
Let the record show the FBI just proved that the FBI does not need to circumvent encryption or a backdoor in order to catch criminals. Great!
- silveraxe93 6y ago
  I agree with your broader point, but I doubt they ever claimed that? I don't think the FBI would ever say that without cracking encryption they'd catch no criminals. Only that many who don't get caught today _would_ be.
CPLX 6y ago
I feel like someone should pause just for a moment to note the brilliance of a criminal syndicate with the name "PillCosby"
jl2718 6y ago
Here are two metrics that law enforcement might use to measure their “war on drugs”: 1. The total amount of drugs imported into or produced within the country. This measures the problems related to addiction. 2. The total number of drug dealers in the country. This is a measure of social problems related to gangs/violence etc. The dark web changes the game because the D2C model competes against gangs and offers law enforcement an easy choke point on producers and importers. We should be careful not to send the market back to the streets. Personally I’d rather live in a society without drugs. Right now it is not legal to use drugs, nor is it legal to exclude drug users.
ur-whale 6y ago
What an amazing waste of taxpayer's money.

200 points by prostoalex 6y ago

I've always wondered, why do these software engineers take such risks building and setting up these illegal marketplaces? I mean, are you really going to make that much more than you would as a regular software engineer at a company?

mkoryak 6y ago
Why do criminals do crimes? If you want to break the law and you happen to be a SWE, I don't think it makes much difference.
- HenryBemis 6y ago
  Criminals will do crime. The thing that always buffles me is WHO buys heroin, cocaine, weed, etc. over the internet.. Aren't they scared that DHL, FedEx, USPS will scan/sniff the packages? Or they use "Drug delivery express"? Or they buy online and they meet someone in a parking lot for the pick-up? Why not buy then and there then? As we see in the movies, most drug trafficking is a drive-by thing.. is it not?
  - SCHiM 6y ago
    Having drugs sent to you is not proof that you bought them. I mean, it'd be too easy to blackmail someone if I could just send you a 'package' and then drop a tip @OurFriendsInBlue, no? That said, if you keep getting busted with marching powder in your magazines, at some point people will stop accepting that excuse ;)
    - ChrisKnott 6y ago
      Having drugs sent to you is evidence you bought them. Maybe not conclusive evidence by itself, but certainly good evidence. Almost certainly there would be corroborating evidence such as drugs paraphernalia, financial transactions, positive blood test, internet history, etc You are unlikely to get caught because you are unlikely to have the package intercepted. If it is, you should expect to be convicted.
    - HenryBemis 6y ago
      I was misunderstood, my bad, bad writing. My question/wondering was on: why the hell would someone buy drugs online, and how to they accept the risk on consuming these when they arrive. Buying an iPhone cable online is a risk I can accept. Buying heroin online (I don't do drugs) it goes beyond me on the risk acceptance of such deed. I get it that darkweb has a scoring system like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, but heroin? Cocaine? Weed? It is not about "police can't charge you" it is about "who the hell is going to inject something that was bought on the darkweb in their veins?? What goes through their mind? I assume not much since these are people who buy heroin, online.. so that answers my question.
      - SCHiM 6y ago
        Well it's a direct market, customer service is king. The sellers cannot really move their 'brand' from one market to another. An opportunist could reserve their username on another market, and users know that anyone could be behind that new account. They don't trust the name, only the reviews you have on your particular market. What I want to say is that the reputation of their anonymous brand is worth something, because they can't take it somewhere in a hurry and takes time to build (if you build it legitimately, it always seems easy to cheat with a bot). Reviews from other users, (who also have a visible reputation, to combat botting), are taken seriously. The markets themselves provide escrow, if you screw your users and don't have a high standing you're likely won't be receiving payment. This incentivizes sellers to provide a high level of customer service. "So, in order to attract customers in this high stakes and very competitive situation, you need the highest possible rating."[0] "This may help to explain why drugs bought on the dark web tend to be much purer than drugs bought on the street. "[0] [0]:https://unbabel.com/blog/customer-service-dark-web/ https://unbabel.com/blog/customer-service-dark-web/
        s-lambert 6y ago
        > The sellers cannot really move their 'brand' from one market to another. An opportunist could reserve their username on another market, and users know that anyone could be behind that new account. They don't trust the name, only the reviews you have on your particular market. Sellers can move their brand across markets with a different username because they would still have the same PGP key. There's even a search engine to find the same vendor on multiple markets by looking them up by their PGP key.
  - shajznnckfke 6y ago
    Low level purchasers don’t seem to be targeted in these busts. They are after the suppliers. The risk of buying from a darknet market is probably lower than buying from a local dealer, especially for a consumer who doesn’t have any connections. You could go looking for someone dealing on the street, but you won’t know if their stuff has five star reviews. Or you might just get mugged.
  - frower1 6y ago
    Not something I have firsthand experience of, but I believe that the sellers are rated in part on the quality of their delivery. It comes through regular post to the buyers door. But that’s no implication of crime so as a regular consumer it’s fairly safe. Aside from that, the quality of Darknet drugs is significantly better than street drugs. The drugs people (used to) buy on the street have been through a lot of hands and there’s often little substance left at the end. Also, who you going to complain to? At least with a marketplace, sellers are looking for good ratings. It’s also a lot cheaper. I’ve heard nothing but good reports from people buying online.
  - myself248 6y ago
    I don't think there are "criminals" as a type of person like "musicians", who are just compelled to do crime because there's an inner force that just makes their toe tap a certain way. Maybe some small fraction, I guess. But I think the majority of criminals are simply rational actors, who look at the incentives and the odds, assess them (sometimes wrongly), and do what seems sensible to achieve their goals. The goal is not "do crime", the goal is "make money" and the environment is structured such that crime makes money.
- anemoiac 6y ago
  I'm not sure if this was your implication (I may be reading too far into your relatively succinct comment), but I don't think most "criminals" do crimes because they explicitly want to break the law. I would imagine that there are about as many potential reasons for doing things that happen to be against the law as there are for doing things that don't happen to be against the law. I'm not even all that sure what qualifies someone to be considered a "criminal." Is it simply breaking the law, which virtually everyone has done at some point? Is it getting caught committing a criminal act? Getting caught committing a felony-level offense? Is someone who smokes cannabis in Kansas (illegal) a criminal, but not someone who smokes cannabis across the state border with Colorado (legal)? What if the smoker from Kansas crosses the border into Colorado - are they no longer a criminal? What if the smoker from Colorado smoked cannabis before it became legal to so - did they stop being a criminal when cannabis was legalized? What if the smoker from Colorado walks across the border into Kansas - are they a criminal for having smoked cannabis in Colorado, given that doing so is illegal in Kansas? This list could continue, but it's probably already bordering on pedantic... Point being, if breaking the law is all it takes to be considered a criminal, aren't we all criminals?
lobster45 6y ago
Money! And they think they are smarter than those who failed
colinmhayes 6y ago
It's very lucrative and the competition is pretty inept so expectations are low. You can retire to thailand off the residuals. If you're a 20 year old who isn't looking forward to decades of corporate work that might not sound bad.
- msikora 6y ago
  This was something that always boggled my mind how inept these guys sometimes were. In this business your life literally (and I mean literally) depends on good security and they would make some really rookie mistakes.
  - Enginerrrd 6y ago
    It's human. Mistakes can sometimes be really subtle and require only a moment's inattention but sound REALLY dumb when you look at it in fundamental terms. Christ, trained CIA field agents with funding and support staff have made some really stupid mistakes en par. Things like being tracked by metadata from not turning off their cell phone because they thought a chip bag was a good enough faraday cage. Ostensibly it sounds dumb, but that might have only been one time for 20 minutes or something that allowed the Italian investigators to connect the dots. Perfect security for a short time period with one incident is actually still really hard. When you make it a lifestyle going on for months/years, it's nearly impossible.
    - shiftpgdn 6y ago
      Many many CIA agents sent into China have disappeared. If an agency with the greatest set of resources on earth are getting busted regularly what hope does the average Joe software engineer have.
      - croissants 6y ago
        > Many many CIA agents sent into China have disappeared. Source? This doesn't sound like the sort of thing with reliable public statistics?
msikora 6y ago
Most definitely a lot more than a regular software engineer. Alexandre Cazes was estimated to have a net worth of at least USD 23 mil, and that's a conservative estimate. This would all be in cryptocurrencies of course and you would have to find a way to money launder these assets. Another thing to consider is that many of these guys live in countries with cost of living much cheaper than USA (not even talking about Bay Area), Cazes himself was living in Thailand.
- digianarchist 6y ago
  He’s dead now. Was it worth it?
  - pfundstein 6y ago
    Are you implying he didn't commit suicide?
    - digianarchist 6y ago
      Not at all.
  - msikora 6y ago
    It definitely wasn't worth it for him.
- ShorsHammer 6y ago
  Alexandre Cazes is an interesting case that basically never gets mentioned in these threads. It's questionable whether he was doing it alone or even the head operator. But apparently it's all case closed now with no Dread Pirate Roberts type sensational court cases or extradition trial. Also which country had him executed? I'm very certain it wasn't Thailand.
  - pfundstein 6y ago
    Are you implying he didn't commit suicide[§]? § https://web.archive.org/web/20170714143352/https://www.deepdotweb.com/2017/07/14/alleged-alphabay-admin-found-dead-bangkok-jail/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170714143352/https://www.deepd... § http://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2017/07/12/dark-web-le-quebecois-arrete-en-thailande-sest-suicide-en-prison http://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2017/07/12/dark-web-le-quebecois-... § https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/report-alphabay-notorious-dark-web-drug-website-shuttered-by-feds/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/report-alphabay-... § http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/alphabay-suspected-cofounder-alexandre-cazes-found-dead-in-thai-jail-20170715-gxburv.html http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/alphabay-suspected-cof... § https://www.europol.europa.eu/newsroom/news/massive-blow-to-criminal-dark-web-activities-after-globally-coordinated-operation https://www.europol.europa.eu/newsroom/news/massive-blow-to-... § https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/alphabay-largest-online-dark-market-shut-down https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/alphabay-largest-online-dark-...
redisman 6y ago
In most of the world working as a SWE is a middle-class job. Six figure salaries and RSUs are really only a thing in a few top US and EU cities.
- qes 6y ago
  Six figure (albeit lower end of that, and without RSUs) SWE jobs exist in quantity all over the U.S. There isn't a single state where you shouldn't expect to be getting a six figure salary with no more than 5 years working experience as an SWE - and I think saying even 5 years is generous.
birdyrooster 6y ago
I think you answered your own question as I am pretty sure they really do get paid that much more. The same thinking goes into starting a business or becoming self-employed. The people I have met doing those for longer than a year seem to make more than the people working full time jobs.
bonestamp2 6y ago
I think it probably comes down to a combination of Ego and/or Thrill. They think they are too smart to get caught and they get a thrill out of outsmarting people (until they're not). Whenever I see this it makes me think that making money by breaking the law is like playing a video game on cheat mode. Nearly anybody can make money illegally, but the consequences don't usually outweigh the benefits. So, it's almost pointless. The game that is much more gratifying is making lots of money by playing the game on hard mode.
duxup 6y ago
For some it has been highly profitable, and many of them have strongly libertarian style personal beliefs.
vmception 6y ago
Yes, you make a lot more and you don't actually get busted.
user5994461 6y ago
>>> I mean, are you really going to make that much more than you would as a regular software engineer at a company? Hell yeah. I mean, what companies could they possibly work for? Google? Accenture? These only have offices in a handful of cities across the planet. You have zero job prospects as a software engineer as a person living in countryside Asia or Latin America or even Europe outside of metro areas. You might as well try to build your own web business.
DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
> why do these software engineers take such risks I blame ageism in Tech. Where else should we go except jumping the Ättestupa[1][2] /s :-) I guess everyone is different, but if you read the story behind Paul LeRoux[3] there is a lot more to becoming a criminal (including personal hardship and a pre-existing proneness for Denning Kruger - which seems more rampant in our field than anywhere else). And like learning vi / emacs it's actually really hard, so once you get very good in this it's hard to stop (I'm trying too hard to be funny and understand my analogy sounds ludicrous but there are psychological concepts at work which connect difficulty/struggle of a task with whether we can identify with what we are doing and if it fulfills us. Ofc there is also that who else would do this kind of work if not a software/security engineer.) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwD7f5ZWhAk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwD7f5ZWhAk [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%84ttestupa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%84ttestupa [3] https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind
tester34 6y ago
Not everybody is living in USA or country with strong currency
detritus 6y ago
Not everyone focuses solely on cash in life, and for some the thought of becoming a 'regular software engineer at a company' might be existentially boring.
- Loughla 6y ago
  This is the reason my regular dealer sold various items when I was in college. He figured he had the rest of his life to be boring, but the excitement of dealing was too tempting right now to turn down. I'm betting a lot of the people running these sorts of things are in that area; it's just too interesting to try and too much adrenaline at times. Also, are you named after just general detritus, or the Pratchett character?
  - detritus 6y ago
    ha, I quite like the idea of General Detritus! Just detritus generally. It's strange for me as I've been using it for so long now, my mind skips a beat and I feel like I've had a post update whenever I come across the word IRL :) I've actually just picked up my first ever Pratchett - "Small Gods" - after having somehow avoided reading him for the past 30 years! "Detritus was the first troll member of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch..." - I'll look forward to that, thanks!

blakesterz 6y ago

"Operation DisrupTor" The docs are here: https://www.justice.gov/opa/documents-related-september-22-2020-press-conference https://www.justice.gov/opa/documents-related-september-22-2... I assume there's at least something interesting in there about how they actually did the disruption. It'll be interesting to see the technical details once they come out. Maybe a "How we disrupted tor during Operation DisrupTor" talk at defcon next year :-)

shuntress 6y ago
This is based on half-remembered pseudo-technical details of how TOR works but my understanding is that the most effective way to compromise someone's connection through The Onion Router is to control their entrance and exit nodes. So my initial assumption is that the bulk of the work would be in gaining and confirming that control and the rest would likely be "trivial" analysis of traffic through those gateways.
- rlt 6y ago
  > the most effective way to compromise someone's connection through The Onion Router is to control their entrance and exit nodes This seems like a big problem since there’s not much incentive, other than altruism, for most people to run Tor nodes, especially exit nodes which will draw a lot of unwanted attention from law enforcement. On the other hand, intelligence agencies have a large incentive to control a majority of Tor nodes. It’s also pretty telling that Tor was partially developed and funded by the US government.
  - im3w1l 6y ago
    > It’s also pretty telling that Tor was partially developed and funded by the US government. Times were different then. The US was fighting wars to topple dictators and spread democracy.
    - noir_lord 6y ago
      Now they seem to want to topple democracy and spread dictators.

intotheabyss 6y ago

What happens when someone creates a decentralized darknet marketplace that transacts using zero knowledge proofs? This is such a waste of resources. Just make all drugs legal and regulate them like anything else. How many times have I bought weed off a dealer in the last two years? The answer is zero, because I purchase my weed legally from a reputable company that follows all applicable regulations.

onion2k 6y ago
This is such a waste of resources. It's a very profitable waste of resources.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
  It's really not DEA budget 2B in 2018 Cash + property that can be liquidated: 340M in 2018
  - gruez 6y ago
    The implication is that it's profitable for the contractors, not for the public.
  - michaelmrose 6y ago
    It means the public lost 2.34B and DEA gained 2.34B
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      There are a lot of people on HN that would take serious issue with any implication that any given tax dollar has anything less than a net-neutral effect for the taxpayers as a whole. Oddly they seem to keep really quite when the topic of the war on drugs comes up.

msikora 6y ago

Do any of these darknet markets or services operators ever successfully "exit" to enjoy their ill-gotten spoils in retirement? Seems like they always get nailed in the end. Even the operator of Grams (darknet market search engine)and Helix (Bitcoin tumbler) who shut down his services in 2017 got arrested just this year. Seems like the heyday of Darknet markets was 5+ years ago and since then law enforcement started to win in a big way. Who got away? Maybe the operators of Agora? Who else?

watwut 6y ago
If they do exit scam first? Was any of those caught?
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  Isn't the idea that you setup something like this, and run it for a while, and then you bailout and sell it to someone else and they do the same? It's a game of hot potato. So long as you don't leave too much evidence and you launder your currencies correctly, only the last owner gets caught. Thats how the Dread Pirate Roberts got his name no?
  - wmf 6y ago
    The question is whether anyone has actually done that in reality rather than telling stories about the theory.
  - vkou 6y ago
    That a fascinating story that DPR told the judge (One of many), who did not believe one bit of it.
    - dylan604 6y ago
      "Because a judge" isn't necessarily the be-all one might wish it to be. A judge is just human and brings along their beliefs and knowledge or lack of to every case.

worldmerge 6y ago

I keep hearing about alternative WWW internets, I'm surprised TOR based shops haven't moved.

torified 6y ago
Like what? Tor itself is never the reason they were caught as far as anyone knows.

codezero 6y ago

The money they claim 6M for 200 arrests is a pretty darn low dollar per person claim - this is a really weak bust in my opinion, and I assume a lot of those arrests are really unlucky people who happened to slip into this net, but not cybercriminal masterminds, or drug lords. Let's celebrate when we catch the people who produce the shit, or even better, legalize as much of it as we can and establish social programs to help with awareness and recovery.

roymurdock 6y ago
Keep your eye on the Sackler/Purdue Pharma case [1]. Purdue steered over $13B directly to the Sackler family by aggressively marketing opiates, misinforming doctors and the public about their dangers, and giving medical software companies kickbacks to push more addictive long-release versions of their opiates to doctors. One company, Allscripts, was able to pay $145M to resolve criminal and civil kickback allegations [2]. They directly killed over 400,000 people between 1999 and 2017 and indirectly killed many more/caused unimaginable human suffering. The family is proposing to pay $3B over 7 years and an additional $1.5B by selling off another company they own. This is the real opiate crisis jackpot and the high-scale, high-powered, industrialized version of the crimes that are happening on the dark web. I'm sure there are more large companies and high powered individuals involved and agree that the 200 arrests/$6M is an infinitely tiny drop in the bucket, but it's way easier to prove and stick than the larger operations. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy-factbox/where-the-purdue-pharma-sackler-legal-saga-stands-idUSKBN1ZS1H3 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy-... [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-investigation-opioids-e/exclusive-oxycontin-maker-purdue-is-pharma-co-x-in-u-s-opioid-kickback-probe-sources-idUSKBN1ZR2RY https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-investigati...
- codezero 6y ago
  Yep - I agree, small wins are easier, and especially if you can use buzzwords like we do in tech. It also leaves more option for agent corruption to bring some of that cash home. This possibly one reason why white collar crime is less punished (see: civil forfeiture - though more so that the likeliness of a successful court case is very low) - less money to take home because rich people will spend it all on lawyers if they have to, then use their connections to get right back on top.

ponker 6y ago

It’s hilarious how small these busts are. 179 people, 500 kg of drugs, $6.5 million of cash/crypto? $6.5 million probably doesn’t build the entryway to the “Sackler gallery.”

grugagag 6y ago
The Sacklers bought their own politicians and shared a part of the loot with the industry whereas small time crime never contributes into that pool and takes away profit from that. Think about it, people who buy drugs illegally could instead drop a few hundred dollars (without an insurance) on a doctors' visit to get the prescription prescription and a few hundred dollars on the actual drugs and they'd have the legal stamp on them - plus the warning not to operate any motorized vehicle on the label. :)

deleted 6y ago

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froawayyes 6y ago

I sometimes enjoy taking psychedelics in a safe environment with good people and darknets are invaluable for sourcing them. I simply don't have enough contacts to be able to source them otherwise. I'm a tax paying and responsible citizen who knows how to use tor + tails + monero...and dang it...I'm going to. I have the right to control my consciousness as long as I don't harm others. If you are interested, start by searching for Dread in duckduckgo on the tor browser. Be careful. Measure 10x, cut once.

deleted 6y ago
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seebetter 6y ago

Two of the biggest dark web criminals are serving a combined 16 1/2 years in federal prison. One is a former Secret Service agent and the other is a former DEA agent.

ronyfadel 6y ago
Any source on that?
- DarthGhandi 6y ago
  Any real reason you can't google it other than being worried about the big G knowing what you looked up? https://www.wired.com/2016/02/corrupt-silk-road-investigator-re-arrested-trying-to-flee-the-us/ https://www.wired.com/2016/02/corrupt-silk-road-investigator...

jeremiahlee 6y ago

Let the record show the FBI just proved that the FBI does not need to circumvent encryption or a backdoor in order to catch criminals. Great!

silveraxe93 6y ago
I agree with your broader point, but I doubt they ever claimed that? I don't think the FBI would ever say that without cracking encryption they'd catch no criminals. Only that many who don't get caught today _would_ be.

CPLX 6y ago

I feel like someone should pause just for a moment to note the brilliance of a criminal syndicate with the name "PillCosby"

jl2718 6y ago

Here are two metrics that law enforcement might use to measure their “war on drugs”: 1. The total amount of drugs imported into or produced within the country. This measures the problems related to addiction. 2. The total number of drug dealers in the country. This is a measure of social problems related to gangs/violence etc. The dark web changes the game because the D2C model competes against gangs and offers law enforcement an easy choke point on producers and importers. We should be careful not to send the market back to the streets. Personally I’d rather live in a society without drugs. Right now it is not legal to use drugs, nor is it legal to exclude drug users.

ur-whale 6y ago

What an amazing waste of taxpayer's money.