2 New Zealand Silk Road 1 buyers convicted

"Silk Road drug buyers in court", 3 December 2014:

Auckland [NZ] couple Daniel Wayne Fowler, 23, and Lisa Marie Clark, 22, appeared for sentence in the Manukau District Court today. Fowler pleaded guilty to importing a class B drug. Clark pleaded guilty to possession of class B and C drugs.

Fowler's lawyer Tudor Clee, however, argued that the importing charge would have only been a possession charge if his client had not used modern methods of drug purchase. If Fowler had gone down to "the local gang pad" to buy drugs, he would only be facing a possession charge, Clee said. "Because of the method being easier, safer and cheaper, the penalty increases... If he had done the same thing and gone to the gang pad he would be facing one-twenty-eighth of the penalty." Clee said his client used the crypto-currency Bitcoin to buy the pills off the "dark web" site Silk Road.

Cost-wise, there was a massive discrepancy between the Silk Rd and street prices. Clee said his client was found with 201 pills because the drugs were so cheap they could only be bought in large batches to make it worth-while for the seller. "It's not possible to buy five or six pills," he said. The 200 pills were bought for somewhere between $200 and $300, Clee said

Fowler had also been caught with a cannabis growing operation and he pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis for supply... Clark was originally charged with importing the Ecstasy but that charge was dropped.

"Man imported drugs like 'ordering pizza'", 3 December 2014:

Daniel Wayne Fowler, 23, used a website similar to "Silk Rd"...Over the course of a week at the end of September last year [2013], Customs intercepted three packages containing a total of 201 ecstasy pills and 16 grams of cannabis...The mail - which came from Germany and Belgium - was addressed to [Lisa Marie] Clark but Fowler later told police they were for him. A search warrant executed at the pair's suburban Howick home found Fowler also had a cannabis-growing operation established in the garage and interception of their cellphone messages showed they were complicit in the offending. Mr Clee said cases of this nature were increasing in frequency because of the convenience of online drug-dealing networks.

...Fowler had worked hard as an engineer but a back injury saw him at home in pain, with time on his hands, the court heard. But after being apprehended, he was on bail in the same position when police caught him dealing cannabis, which led to a further charge.

The two articles don't seem to agree on whether it was Silk Road or not, but the second claims the orders were intercepted in September 2013, so it was almost certainly SR1 (raided October 2013). From the wording of the second as well, they probably weren't busted because of the grow op but busted because of the intercepted MDMA/marijuana, then while the trial was ongoing, he grew some marijuana and got busted for that.


Comments


[11 Points] brassmail:

What kind of mental misfit has 16 grams of weed sent through international customs when they have their own grow op in the garage?? Couldn't wait the last two weeks for your shit to fully ripen? What a fucking idiot, low hanging fruit.


[5 Points] None:

[deleted]


[1 Points] ShulginsCat:

1$-1.5$/pill that's an insane deal. Even if you assume 50mg/pill which will only be enough for a small child, it's still $20-$30/g.

EDIT: 1 NZD = 0.77 USD

EDIT 2: "The 200 pills were bought for somewhere between $200 and $300, Clee said, though there was no evidence of this as the whole point of Silk Road was to make anonymous transactions that left no record." - the buyers probably made this figure up so it doesn't seem like they are big time dealers.


[1 Points] TankerBuzz:

Why order pills and weed through silkroad? They are so easily detected are they not?


[-1 Points] ApricockApecot:

I don't believe it just because New Zealand/Australia's prices are complete and utter shit.