Swedish police: "You're not as anonymous as you think"

In an article in the Southern Swedish News, local police announce they have arrested two online vendors. This was achived they say by posing as customers and ordering online themselves, followed up by one suspect being filmed as he posted 'padded envelopes' in a mailbox. They add that they have now the technology to trace purchasers, and in connection with the arrests have the addresses of over 'one hundred customer's whose information 'has been passed on to local authorities'. Somewhat doubt this, but is it possible?


Comments


[17 Points] -Republic-:

Sounds like grandstanding to me.


[7 Points] Erthryol:

Chose the phone a friend option, and to pad things out a little two men ages 22 and 25 were charged the 26th for selling during a longer period 2013. The 25 year old is cited as having 893 sales on one page and 448 sales spread over two others (speed, coke, weed, X, prescriptoins), the 22 year old 448 (speed, weed, X) on one, and 140 on two others (all weed). They are also charged with smuggling from Denmark. Copenhegen is a fairly short drive from where they are (i.e. christiania). Nothing much has been said yet regarding how they were put under surveillance, but it could be from bringing it in in the first place as it's a pretty popular entry point. It's also possible that a package simply got seized going out and eventually traced back, or any other average bust that then evolved into an online thing after surveillance. Trial begins monday, so more information is likely to trickle out at a glacial pace after that.

[EDIT] Oh, and also, a new Swedish market has opened and come to the attention of the press. Quite a few of the articles are about it, saying that Swedes have been known to use international sites but that this is the first site actually focused on selling there. Police are saying they have no way to directly shut it but are saying they're on it and have the situation well in hand. So it's definitely a situation where DNMs are getting more attention and perhaps more commentary from the police then they usually might.

And receiving further compiled checking, apparently several more people have been charged, including seizing some outgoing shipments. Addresses found, text messages and numbers on burner phones, information from seized computers indicate yada yada yada. It's looking a lot like no one is positive where this started, but that it does involve quite a few people who aren't involved in the online trade beyond that it's obviously not online all the way to production. It looks like a fairly normal situation of someone, somewhere getting busted and a slew of up and downstream falling victim to a combination of imperfect opsec and patient investigators. It all seems connected, a loose network of various underground entrepreneurs some of which sold online. Quite probably teaching each other the ropes, helping downstream buyers transition to online or take up online-only as an option to street level dealing. Hard to say if it'll ever become clear if the ground zero bust was online or off. They are not, however, showing anything that implies they're sweeping up unconnected online dealers wholesale. That would seem to point toward this being a single swipe taking down a few links deep, or that they're intentionally only releasing things that point in that direction.


[3 Points] None:

Isn't it a little weird that all of these things are coming out from LE at the same time? It looks like they're just doing a sweep of everyone they know sells in order to scare off the buyers.


[3 Points] not-your-mom:

Highly doubt this, as swedish police are not allowed to provoke crime


[2 Points] hahahdoadoakdoakdo:

Lets parse this large pile of shit into separate parts:

In an article in the Southern Swedish News, local police announce they have arrested two online vendors. This was achived they say by posing as customers and ordering online themselves, followed up by one suspect being filmed as he posted 'padded envelopes' in a mailbox.

Could be prints, or they dropped in a PO, or some dumbshit thing like what recent busts have been about.

They add that they have now the technology to trace purchasers,

If by technology they mean google map seaching the customer lists the vendors shouldnt have been keeping in the first place, yes i have this technology too, boo!

and in connection with the arrests have the addresses of over 'one hundred customer's whose information 'has been passed on to local authorities'. Somewhat doubt this, but is it possible?

Yeah, its called bad opsec.


[2 Points] None:

[deleted]


[1 Points] None:

Doesn't surprise me that the swedish police would use such big brother words in the title. Would not surprise me if they come up with thought crimes.


[1 Points] plurblur:

It's 100% possible.

They place an order, get a look at what his packages look like and see where they were mailed from by the post mark. Then just watch that location. When someone drops off another similar package, you have him.

Then, with the vendors in custody, they learn the details of how he packaged everything, they can create a profile and have the post be on the lookout for all of his packages, with their destination address.

And if the vendor kept records of past customers... well that's just a bonus.

Do they have all this info? I don't know. Is it possible? 100%. Don't let people fool you into thinking "opsec" makes this game without risk.


[1 Points] ShapeShiftingShapes:

online vendor can be anything between someone selling weed or lean on instagram,facebook,craigslist and a full blown darknet vendor.

feel free to guess which kind of vendor i suspect it to be.