Operation Onymous: The Hulkster pleads guilty

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".


Comments


[8 Points] None:

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.


[6 Points] None:

Any information on where they got the €141,000 number from? That could have been about a gram and a half of LSD, since it seems like they priced each dose at $10 to come up with that figure.

Surprising to see an LSD vendor get popped. That being said, I guess you can say that OPSEC is pretty much no different between LSD and MDMA and H and meth vendors for example, but you'd think LSD would be one of the least risky substances to sell.


[3 Points] None:

/u/vendor_BBMC this is the raid that TGUK is saying, these were JoR (Jesus of Rave)'s people. TheHulkster and jerseycow were both resellers of his tabs.


[2 Points] noonehear:

LOL connected to a dark net website when he was raided... nobody learned from Ross and SR1.

Also why did he just hand over his USB drive and bank accounts and such? Will it lessen the seriousness of his charges (in the USA it will just screw you harder).


[1 Points] None:

When this first happened I thought is was jersey cow


[1 Points] lamoustache:

From: Irish Mirror

Det Sgt Roberts told Caroline Cummings BL, prosecuting, that he and colleagues placed Mannion under surveillance after receiving confidential information about a computer IP address

FWIW, The source of the confidential information about a computer IP address is very likely related to the CMU/CERT attack of Tor.