I've been reporting on the arrest and trial of The Hulkster in Ireland. Full story here http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/irishnews/article4645319.ece but as it's behind a paywall here are some details that might be of interest
The Hulkster is two people Neil Mannion, a former telecoms worker and Richard O'Connor, a film grip. Mannion admitted that O'Connor had a secondary role and was only involved in posting orders, for about €600 a week
Both pleaded guilty and will be sentenced tomorrow
Police didn't say too much about where information came from, and Irish police most likely weren't involved in an Tor exploit that lead to arrest.
From Article: Irish police received a tip-off from FBI and Europol investigators in October last year. Mannion was placed under surveillance which led gardai to an office on Dublin's South Circular road. On November 5, members of the Drug Unit, Criminal Assets Bureau and CCIU raided the office and arrested Mannion and O'Connor. O'Connor was using a laptop connected to a dark net website when the officers arrived. The search uncovered €141,000 worth of LSD and smaller amounts of MDMA and cannabis resin as well as postage labels, envelopes, vacuum packers and €8,000 worth of prepaid credit cards. There was also evidence that the pair had sold LSD to 27 countries including the UK, the US, Canada, Israel, Belgium, Italy, Mexico, Japan, Thailand, Finland and Brazil. A follow-up search at Mannion's Harold's Cross apartment found documentation relating to offshore bank accounts in Switzerland, Belize, Poland and other countries. At his mother's house in Dundrum he handed over a USB stick and password which gave access to €18,000 in Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency. A Dundrum Credit Union account contained €25,000 that he said was from Bitcoin while money in other Irish bank accounts amounted to €42,000. Over the course of 11 interviews, Mannion detailed the operation that he and O'Connor ran under the name The Hulkster. The two were selling on Silk Road 2 and Agora, illegal online marketplaces, which Mannion said were set up "just like eBay or Amazon". The sites allowed dealers to advertise drugs and interact with customers anonymously. He said that The Hulkster account had 90-100 per cent positive feedback from customers who rated the quality of the drugs and reliability of delivery. "I didn't expect to have hundreds of customers and get so much attention, it just flew out of control," Mannion said. Det Sgt Roberts said that Mannion was "not the usual type of criminal we deal with in the organised crime unit".
God this makes me sick, they act like they are committing murder in the article when they are just selling LEGIT drugs. The fact that government agencies tries to take down these people makes no fucking sense. By selling online people don't have to go buy randoms shit off the streets and risk getting fake and potentially deadly drugs. Fuck the government and their bullshit war on drugs.