FBI raids alleged online drug market Silk Road, arrests owner

Starting in summer 2012

They intercepted mail from him and used the return address to find his PO box. They then found out about PO boxes in the same fake name. This gave no results in good time.

They realised there was a pattern in the handwriting and package style so the officer showed the packages to PO staff, re-releasing them into the mailstream afterwards. PO staff said such packs were sent by a blonde female. When she next came to the PO they recorded the license plate of the car, and the owner of the car was identified as the person who rented the PO boxes. Surveillance confirdmed they lived at the same address.

March 2013: The post office reported receiving a pack with the same handwriting and style again. They then performed a controlled delivery on a customer who told officers that he had ordered from "NOD" on the silik road.

They then tracked the two cars he owned to see which post offices he used.

The police ordered two orders of cocaine from NOD to gather evidence.
They used his feedback page to gauge order volume.
 
sandytrail said:
if more people have access to dangerous drugs, more people will take them and die.
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slimvictor said:
Yes, and when steak is available, more people choke on it and die. ;)
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Your analogy is pretty weak and you know it which is why you try to sell it off as irony. People gotta eat. Choking deaths are a concern, but you cannot really pin it down on one type of food. For example, a quick google reveals that choking from hot dogs, marshmallows, and small toys seems more important statistically.

In any case, many more people die from drug abuse and drug poisioning than from choking. Plus, food is a necessity, mind-altering drugs are not.

One should add, though, that deaths are far from the only cost of drugs. Drug use has many other very important negative externalities (cost to the health care system, drug-related crime, enforcement-related costs, loss of labor and human capital, to name a few).
 
^ But alcohol and tobacco and pharmaceutical drugs which are all legal are ok? But cause millions of deaths per yr worldwide? Fuck that, people should be able to use and take what they like, if they hurt themselves bad luck. At least the harm would be minimised if the drugs people wish to take would be legal, then we'd see set doses, packaging that contained help and quit or detox lines etc and more tax towards the government (and hopefully back into community things, like roads and schools and detox and rehabs and stuff) instead of the profits going to who knows who like it is now. Adulterated drugs, mis-labeled drugs and non-set dosages and the illegality cause alot of the things you mentioned, enforcement costs, drug related crime, costs to health care etc.

In any case, many more people die from drug abuse and drug poisioning than from choking. Plus, food is a necessity, mind-altering drugs are not.
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And more people dies from car accidents, pharmaceutical drugs, alcohol and tobacco use and load of other things that illegal drug use or abuse. So what's your point?

if more people have access to dangerous drugs, more people will take them and die.
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So shouldn't alcohol and tobacco be totally banned and made illegal then? Pretty two faced to allow those substances that are killing millions of people and not allow cannabis or MDMA, meth or heroin etc when they haven't killed nearly as many people and wouldn't kill nearly as many people at all if they were made legal because there would be set doses and more purer products without adulterations and made in pharmaceutical environments, thus reducing harm and deaths to people who are obviously going to use them either way.
 
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poledriver said:
^ But alcohol and tobacco and pharmaceutical drugs which are all legal are ok?
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that's a red herring-type fallacy, nobody claimed they were.
poledriver said:
Fuck that, people should be able to use and take what they like, if they hurt themselves bad luck.
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they're not just hurting themselves, they're hurting others, too (see the examples of negative externalities I mentioned above).

---

Btw, I didn't claim that policies that aim to reduce supply are the most effective in preventing drug addiction and drug-related deaths. But I think the SR seizure wasn't all bad. It kind of troubles me what kind of dangerous drugs kids (who would otherwise stuck to weed and maaaybe, DXM) can get their hands on nowadays thanks to the internet. And it's a tremendous challenge to educate kids about drugs, given the sheer amount of new drugs -- many dangerous -- that are discovered each and every year.
 
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^ So are people using alcohol and tobacco and people who are over-prescribed pharmaceuticals or abuse them recreationally, so what, it's ok for them to cause negatives, but not people who use other drugs?

People can die off drinking too much water, there's always going to be people who abuse things, or go too hard or whatever, for various reasons, some people are also just fucked in the head, doesn't mean the responsible ppl should all be cut off does it.

The governments and police and dea etc are fighting a losing battle, and the winners are the people in high up drug gangs and cartels, they pay no tax and still keep getting their products out there, because there is (and always will be) demand. There will continue to be more and more deaths and incarcerations and health issues from a variety of reasons if drugs are kept illegal as they are now, demand isnt going away, dealers and users arent going away, cartels and crime gangs arent going away, no matter how much police or funding is put into trying to stop it, it just doesnt make a difference, it's only got worse, more killings, more OD's and deaths and harm (adulterated drugs and non-set doses have alot to do with that) more drug turf. More profits to try and hold onto. More corruption, bribes, break ins, etc etc.

There's other ways to deal with it that havent been tried in alot of places in the world yet and I think it's about time we tried other things. As what we have been through hasnt worked, and isnt working.

Hell if heroin or meth was legal from a pharmacist I still wouldnt try it or use it. You dont have to buy it if you dont want to, like you dont with alcohol or tobacco or oxy or whatever.

SR gets taken down and there are replacements, there always will be, more and more people know about it and want to help to create new and improved sites to fill the void. Good luck trying to stop it, better off regulating it and making it so such sites are not needed, people (mostly) dont sell alcohol or tobacco, they dont deal them (not much anyway) as they just dont need too, if you wont it you can go buy it no problem, with tax going to the government and people getting paid to make them and sell them etc. Business. Legal business. And they are very harmful drugs, ones that kill and bring huge amounts of health issues and pain to families with death and health problems etc. So why cant the other drugs be on offer legally? Otherwise they will just continue to be on offer illegally and then its easier for under age people to buy them as well, as they might go to someones house to buy weed at first but then eventually that person they are buying weed from might offer or sell them meth or xtc or lsd, and that selling and buying that way there is no regulation, no ID checks for age, and the drugs may be mimic drugs like nbome instead of lsd, or bath salts in a pill instead of mdma, or bath salts instead of meth or methylone instead of mdma, some shit instead of coke, etc etc.

I agree, kids need to be educated about drugs, more so than ever, with real up to date education, no glamorization (is that a word? lol) and not scare tactics, just real education. Especially about the mimic drugs that are out now. MOre about how to be careful if the do ever try drugs, of whatever nature, like testing with reagents to make sure they know what they are using, or starting very slowly with whatever substance, if they shoot up to use clean needles, and to look after their friends etc etc. Problems will always occur, as I said some people will always abuse and go too hard, but we have to try hey.
 
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poledriver said:
^ So are people using alcohol and tobacco and people who are over-prescribed pharmaceuticals or abuse them recreationally, so what, it's ok for them to cause negatives, but not people who use other drugs?
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You're fallacious argument doesn't become logical through repetition. I didn't make any claims about legal drugs. I don't see how the substantial dangers legal drugs cause to their users as well as to society justify the distribution of illegal drugs through SR.
 
sandytrail said:
You're fallacious argument doesn't become logical through repetition. I didn't make any claims about legal drugs. I don't see how the substantial dangers legal drugs cause to their users as well as to society justify the distribution of illegal drugs through SR.
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Firstly, your initial sentence does not make sense, unless you actually mean your*.

Your argument is completely invalid and thus irrelevant to any discussion about drugs. You are presuming that keeping drugs illegal is effectively keeping them out of reach for people. This is not true. Everyone who wants drugs already has "access"...Silk Road simply created an avenue where most of the dangers from scoring on the street were eliminated. Combining that with a ratings system the site encouraged customers to participate in, we created quite an effective system of getting significantly less adulterants in substances, hence less unexpected side effects.

Everything on this planet has an element of danger as we are mortal beings. Going by your analogy, we should ban everything and anything that is dangerous...physical sports, cars, technology, guns, etc. Sure drugs are not a necessity, but they sure are popular. They are so popular that keeping them illegal is just cornering a market worth $billions to criminals. $BILLIONS$. They are so popular that prisons are over-crowding with nonviolent "criminals". They are so popular, that despite the threat of persecution, people are still using drugs to kill stress, wind down, have fun or to simply cope with life.

Drugs are a victimless crime, and the cost to society would be decreased by regulating the market and taxing the sales of the substances and thus using the extra income from taxes to tackle the relevant problems. I don't see how anyone without a vested interest can disagree with these statements. Unless of course you are one of them with a ve$ted interest in keeping them illegal, cough * DEA *Cough *Cough FDA *Cough Prison Industry, Big Pharma *Cough.

You seem to be coming from a health point of view, and if you truly are, then you are a blind sheep in which the government has been successfully brain washing. It is a fact that the US government lies to its citizens. The many leaks from its own citizens prove this. Your own government SPIES on you. So the "health and destruction" point of view and justification they use to keep drugs scheduled, in an industry worth so much to so many stake holders, has caused that argument to become mute quite some time ago. Need a new one buddy...
 
^ unfortunately people like this you have to look through. They are set in their ways, and keep their eyes closed to what the policies and agencies are really doing to spend our hard earned tax dollars.
We all want to live in a land of freedom and not have to worry about fascism and a controlling government. Some people don't believe in choices and letting people live their own life, and not to be told what to do how to do it, and when to do it. Or to be told what is right and what is wrong. I have found out in my years on this earth, is that some people just don't have their own mind, and want to be told what to do and how they are suppose to live. This is way off the topic of the thread, but I wish common sense would just prevail sometimes!!!!
 
sandytrail said:
It kind of troubles me what kind of dangerous drugs kids (who would otherwise stuck to weed and maaaybe, DXM) can get their hands on nowadays thanks to the internet. And it's a tremendous challenge to educate kids about drugs, given the sheer amount of new drugs -- many dangerous -- that are discovered each and every year.
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I could go downstairs right now and walk by about 5 smack dealers in the time it took me to get to the nearest tube stop. I could also go stand in front of any busy club tonight and probably get offered pills. I had friends at 13 who were buying coke from street dealers. Easy access to drugs is not something that magically came across with the internet and sites such as SR...if you really want your drugs it's really not that difficult to get them in person. The only difference being you're taking a hell of a bigger risk when it comes to your personal safety.
But yeah, save the kids. :|

Also I find it vaguely ironic that two of the negative externalities you mentioned - enforcement-related costs and drug-related crime - would be solved, or at least wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem, if drugs were decriminalised. I'm absolutely positive that the war on drugs is causing more casualties than a world where people decide what to do with their own bodies would; where people would have access to purer/safer drugs; where cartels wouldn't own violent illegal empires.

But yes, yes, let's take down a safe drug network to promote street violence and weird RCs instead. Three cheers for government heroism.
 
sandytrail said:
Your analogy is pretty weak and you know it which is why you try to sell it off as irony. People gotta eat. Choking deaths are a concern, but you cannot really pin it down on one type of food. For example, a quick google reveals that choking from hot dogs, marshmallows, and small toys seems more important statistically
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Then we can make hot dogs etc illegal too!
I, for one, would love to not have to step on any more small toys in the kids' room.

sandytrail said:
In any case, many more people die from drug abuse and drug poisioning than from choking. Plus, food is a necessity, mind-altering drugs are not.
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If MORE people die from drugs then we should make drugs MORE illegal! :|

As for your claim that mind-altering drugs are not a necessity, how many cultures can you name that do not have them?
And, in the few you might be able to name, do they engage in some activity that is mind-altering? Meditation, prayer, ritual fasting, etc? These are all methods of altering the mind that are quite similar to drugs in many ways (though, imo, superior because they rely solely on internal effort, rather than taking a shortcut. But I digress.)

And, I wonder if you are prepared and willing to carefully and empirically delineate the differences between foods (such as chocolate and sugar and coffee) and mind-altering drugs such as sceletium tortuosum ("kanna").
I have yet to see a satisfactory definition of drugs that excludes many items we commonly call foods.
All foods, to tell the truth, at least have the potential to alter our consciousness. If you are starving nearly to death, and find a banana and eat it, do you honestly believe that your mental state won't change???

sandytrail said:
One should add, though, that deaths are far from the only cost of drugs. Drug use has many other very important negative externalities (cost to the health care system, drug-related crime, enforcement-related costs, loss of labor and human capital, to name a few).
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Some of those costs are inflicted purposefully (e.g. "enforcement-related").
But more importantly, you ignore the tremendous benefits that drugs bring.
Therefore, I ask people who want to make / keep drugs illegal to keep their noses out of my personal business.
I think to myself: This is my body. What gives you any right to tell me what I can put into it?
The very idea....:!

In any case, I want to be clear that I do not mean to attack you personally.
I appreciate talking with you about this, to get our ideas out there and communicate.
I am also worried about the vast potential harm of drugs, but to me that means that we must educate the people, not hide the drugs.
People in every human culture have used drugs throughout history.
People will use drugs. You can't stop them. (Not clear exactly why you would want to try to stop them from using drugs - just from using them dangerously, e.g. driving while impaired).
Once everyone recognizes this fact, then education becomes the clear choice of strategy.
Peace.
 
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liftedgift said:
If so how do they get the Vendor's addresses...
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There are a number of ways. I believe the first SR vendor they busted some time ago they got because he shipped registered. Similarly, when the cops make controlled buys or intercept mailings, the date stamps on the mailings provide valuable clues.

Moreover, LE could use information it gained through its root access to the server infrastructure to identify vendors. AFAIK, that's only speculation at this point. In any case, that's what some people think may be what led to the British and Swedish vendors.
 
slimvictor said:
Then we can make hot dogs etc illegal too!
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That's a gross oversimplification. Are you American by any chance? I really am prejudiced and believe many Americans love to paint everything Black and White and Good and Evil.

Driving 10 mph over the speed limit is not as risky to innocent bystanders as is driving 30 mph over the speed limit. Statistically, 30 mph over the limit is much riskier, hence it is penalized more heavily. Similarly, heroin carries much greater risk statistically than hot dogs do. It's not just less common that someone robs you so he can cop another hot dog ;)
 
^Are you the Australian dad?
Peter Hitchens?

I don't think Slim Victor has even lived in the US for awhile, not sure if he's American...

By you saying Americans "paint everything black and white", that's exactly what you're doing when you make a statement like that...

High blood pressure and heart disease kills more people every year than heroin does, bad diet in general and more people die from prescription drugs every year than they do heroin, but you don't see them pulling those drugs off the market.
 
sandytrail said:
That's a gross oversimplification. Are you American by any chance? I really am prejudiced and believe many Americans love to paint everything Black and White and Good and Evil.

Driving 10 mph over the speed limit is not as risky to innocent bystanders as is driving 30 mph over the speed limit. Statistically, 30 mph over the limit is much riskier, hence it is penalized more heavily. Similarly, heroin carries much greater risk statistically than hot dogs do. It's not just less common that someone robs you so he can cop another hot dog ;)
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Ahh..well at least you admit your prejudice..it would explain some...narrow mindedness and other qualities that go along with, well..being prejudice. Surely you are smarter than that.
 
Mendo_K said:
NOD

The seller was known as ‘NOD’ on the illegal marketplace – his real name is Steven Lloyd Sadler - and was among the “top one percent of sellers” on Silk Road.

The authorities connected the drug seller to Silk Road after intercepting a package with cocaine and heroin destined for an Alaskan resident, who agreed to cooperate with the authorities to reduce his own sentence. He admitted to have purchased the drugs from ‘NOD’ via the illegal marketplace.

http://bitcoinexaminer.org/bitcoins-were-being-used-at-silk-road-to-buy-drugs-for-assisted-suicides/
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I hope that snitch finds himself in a ditch.
 
sandytrail said:
That's a gross oversimplification. Are you American by any chance? I really am prejudiced and believe many Americans love to paint everything Black and White and Good and Evil.

Driving 10 mph over the speed limit is not as risky to innocent bystanders as is driving 30 mph over the speed limit. Statistically, 30 mph over the limit is much riskier, hence it is penalized more heavily. Similarly, heroin carries much greater risk statistically than hot dogs do. It's not just less common that someone robs you so he can cop another hot dog ;)
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Right, people rob for heroin - because it is illegal. If they could buy it cheaply at the corner store, and quality was assured, the risk would drop significantly. Nobody would rob for money for heroin, and almost nobody would overdose.

As for my nationality, it is really irrelevant to this discussion. In fact, I am not the one painting everything as black and white - did you really think I was? I am the one saying the it is impossible to reliably differentiate between foods and drugs. This means that I am saying that they are not black and white categories. You, on the other hand, are saying that drugs cause harm and therefore should be illegal, as if it were all black and white. Who is the "American" now? ;)
 
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