How do they catch sellers?

In The recent case where dutch police seized one website and also after the seize of silk road one some sellers got arrested. How do you think this happened? I mean seller for sure didn't give their name or location, mostly possible that buyer's name are recorded with the shipping address if they didn't use pgp. So how do you thin sellers have been caught? Something a about bitcoin transfers? How can a bitcoin transaction be tracked?


Comments


[53 Points] deAdlypROM:

Nod: he got caught b/c of some package intercepted en route to Alaska. They feds then began to look for similar packages and saw that they were coming from Seattle. They alerted the Seattle area post offices, and when Nod went to the post office, a PO worker got Nod's license plate #, and that was all she wrote.

MDPro: She was a lousy vendor in terms of security. The feds simply made a few purchases from her and she was dumb enough to use a return address that was a private mailbox that was easily traced to her.

Supertrips: He had a shipment intercepted in customs. They profiled the package and quickly began to intercept his shipments. He left a fingerprint on a package. The FBI sent the prints to Europe. He must have been arrested in the past, b/c one of the European countries identified his print from their database. His partner in the U.S.- Underground Syndicate, was arrested, but I haven't seen any details. He probably flipped and lured Supertrips to travel to the U.S. and he was arrested as soon as he arrived.


[9 Points] hugsfordrugs:

Lot of noobs in here acting like lawyers and detectives lmao. Good shit.


[2 Points] None:

Getting international shipments.. Pretty sure customs found it and that is how it all started.. They flagged shipments for him and just kept collecting them


[1 Points] Dr-Oz:

http://www.deepdotweb.com/

search trew old stories and don't make the same mistakes these vendors did.

There are plenty of new mistakes to make.


[1 Points] Dr-Oz:

How can a bitcoin transaction be tracked?

https://blockchain.info Enter the last address you used for a dnm buy

Does it link from where you buy bitcoin in your name ?


[1 Points] None:

i don't remember the details but a german vendor got caught because he was getting cash in mail for bulk orders


[1 Points] gwern:

http://www.gwern.net/Silk%20Road#safe


[1 Points] None:

I think some of them were packages that got intercepted. I'm willing to bet that some of the big vendors thought they were untouchable and sent their addresses without encryption to someone.

Who really knows though? It sounds like they have the ability to find you even with tor, so if that's possible then they just have to make up some BS as to how they found someone.


[-3 Points] None:

They probably socially engineered their way into the scene. Like they did with Ross, message him about big business opportunities and get him to let his guard down.


[-2 Points] 666fun:

They catch drugs coming to a buyer. Then they check the package to find what post office it was mailed from. And then they watch that post office for anybody dropping off packages they think are suspect. But yeah, much more risk is on te buyer rather than the seller...


[-10 Points] usonazty:

the same way 99% of all crimes are investigated and solved: snitches. and then they wait and watch. you're fooling yourself if you think pgp will protect you.