Most people just thought it was an exit scam right? Didn't see any information on a possible bust, but today I am scrolling through my local news and this pops up:
[..] Das Trio habe für die unter dem Namen Merk KG im [..]
I believe "Merk KG" is just a wrong mistranslation from the journalist who wrote the article. There is no vendor by the name of "Merk KG", and if you do google "Merk KG" the actual company called "MerckKGaA" comes up, so it is a frequent misstype. I have no time to translate, but they busted 4 people in total. Seized 116kg drugs (Speed, Coke, MDMA, XTC, Heroin) and were able to proof 3800 total Darknet transactions.
Man I can't make any sense of this. Just looking further into it the information is very confusing, but there are a lot of articles:
Article from 16-OKT: http://www.wn.de/Muensterland/Kreis-Borken/Gronau/2145705-Prozess-gegen-35-jaehrigen-Gronauer-Drogen-ueber-Darknet-verkauft
Article from 15-DEC: http://www.wn.de/Muensterland/Kreis-Borken/Gronau/2207621-Im-Darknet-angeboten-Von-Gronau-aus-Drogen-in-DVD-Huellen-verschickt
Article from 12-FEB: http://www.wn.de/Muensterland/Kreis-Borken/Gronau/2272089-Drogenhandel-im-Darknet-Siebeneinhalb-Jahre-Gefaengnis-fuer-Dealer
Article from 16-FEB: http://www.wn.de/Muensterland/Kreis-Steinfurt/Steinfurt/2276999-Darknet-Prozess-Drogen-verschickt-Burgsteinfurterin-muss-hinter-Gittern
What I get from this is:
There where several busts, on several dates (From April to Oktober?!), one leading to the extradition of a Dutch person staying in Madrid. They all where identified to be part of one crew. There also is another person who is currently sitting in jail and has yet to get sentenced.
Initial reason for the bust was a random citizen reporting a guy with a huge pile of envelopes and rubber gloves filling up a mailbox letter after letter while a Mercedes was waiting for him. Police came, opened up the mailbox and found 61 letters, containing 1.6kg speed, 50g Cocaine and 746 XTC pills. Then they probably just investigated or ran the plates? They got the guy from Spain because they all talked to each other through SMS or Whatsapp...
Seems like the Dutch guy in Spain fled there, but had his identity and were able to extradite him. Looks like they slowly dismantled the operation but only got the person who was running the online part at the very last bust? This could explain an exit scam.......guy knows his entire crew is behind bars, starts taking in all the money he can get. Still gets busted.
Going to stop researching now because my head is starting to hurt..