Bitcoin Forum

https://alextones.com/dark-web-drug-vendor-identified-by-bitcoin-transactions

I find it pretty incredible that in this day and age dark web fans are still using BTC considering how rapidly tracing is evolving, not that this guy tried remotely hard in the first place.

If you are posting heroin to babies maybe it's time to make the switch to a baked in anon coin.

Its going to become increasingly difficult for the wrong set of people to carry out transactions on the web as the crypto world matures and brings along with it increasing levels of security especially in the areas of KYC  and AML. Its going to be difficult to completely track the ring once they go off the web.

finally, those criminals deserve that.
because of them BTC is always linked to SCAM, Fraud and Drugs...
I don't want people think about BTC as a means for illegal activity... that's stupid. But people are stupid too!
so, it's better if these criminals use a different cryptocurrency instead!

It's quite amazing how if you're linked to such illegal activities you don't transition away from bitcoin to some privacy coin. It's a shame because stories like this will continue to mean bitcoin is linked with illegal activities which is really not the case compared to any other currency.

That doesn't mean Bitcoin cant be used as untraceable currency. It is indeed Bitcoin is pseudo-anonyms. But with additional feature like the mixer, we can achieve a truly anonymous coin. It is indeed another privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies offer us an easy way to do an anonymous transaction. But with a little bit of effort, we can use Bitcoin too.

I never thought about the fact that bitcoin is used only for illegal transactions. This lie is spread by opponents of bitcoin. For illegal transactions, Fiat is used more. To do guilty the currency is silly. A person is responsible for his own actions. I for example never used bitcoin and Fiat for illegal transactions.

Yes, he should've transitioned to Monero or something. It is about time for bitcoin to be cleared of this association with illegal activities. Not sure if Monero would've saved him, though. As the article explains, he appeared to have been carrying along his laptop with his tor browser installed and other compromising materials while going through airport control. They all make silly mistakes sooner or latter.

If he'd gone privacy coin only from minute one he wouldn't have been traceable. The only reason they got him with his laptop is because they knew who he was and were primed for it.

Even though this guy was up to naughtiness, it doesn't mean these techniques won't be abused for less cut and dried cases too.

Well this is good to hear.we need more of these druggist and other criminals rid off of bitcoin to clear bitcoin's name. The regulation of bitcoin has mostly been because of its anonimity and untraceable feature.  But because of kyc and other regulation that governments are requiring, it is now easy to trace criminal activities such as this.

Well I've heard bitcoin is really existing in dark web. In dark net wherein illegal transactions and anything are being done, makes me wonder if it is true that they're using bitcoin in such unwanted transactions. Perhaps this gives idea to anyone that bitcoin is illegal too eventhough its the people who made it into something really not pleasing for everyone. Hope everyone will use bitcoin in good terms as it is in the first place.

That is why cryptocurrency are being associated in drug dealing and making illegal transactions. No doubt why people are afraid in using cryptocurrency because they are trapped in a mindset the bitcoin is still and will always be used in black market giving them the feel of unsafetyness and vulnerable to criminal offenses.

Well that is actually good for those criminals, I think they are not updated about the maturing stage of the cryptocurrencies lol. They are lack in briefing session.

 I pray this information can be made widespread in the media in order to warn off those who think they can use bitcoins and alternative currencies to pursue their criminal activities.

There used to actually be a huge market for Bitcoin and illegal transactions back in 2013 and before. The silk road only dealt with Bitcoin and that's where people would go to buy all sorts of illegal (and some legal) stuff. Now though, with chainalysis and wallet address/ip address association. The public still to this day thinks that people use Bitcoin for illegal transactions but that is just flat out caught. If you use Bitcoin you are way more likely to get caught, which is what happened to this guy. Privacy coins are what people use for illegal transactions nows. Last I heard Monero/DASH was being used the most on the dark net.

Personally for as long as anonimity factor in bitcoin is not covered then no matter how the authorities will trace the transaction the bad guys will use this flatform. It gives them time to hide and cover their tracks before the legal people can catch them.  This is a fact no matter how we denie and this is negative side of bitcoin but im pretty sure the creator of bitcoin will so enhance and find ways to develop bitcoin and make it more better each year.

I also believe that such stories about the sale of drugs or weapons for bitcoins, spoil the reputation and positive aspects of the cryptocurrency, including bitcoin. I Understand that crypto is anonymous, but maybe you should really use Monero,it was originally invented for such problems...

I wonder how likely it is for the interested parties to have the ability to 'untangle' transactions through a mixer. I bet there are probably lots of people working on that right now.

I find many other things pretty incredible in this

First, that there is a website Alex Tones  ;D

Second:

Seriously?  ;D

But I can agree with the trying hard thing.


Linking your address from darknet with transactions directly to an address on localbitcoins owned by a verified account with your real papers is beyond being lazy.

You think that is over with it? Dark web is just filled with all these criminals and no matter what how many rackets you catch in the time there will be many more up front. This is non ending process and as the internet says, dark web is mourned 80% market that we never see over the normal search engines. I think you are missing many more stuff here which tells me that this is not achievement but just more ways to stay alert for the other racket who are still dealing with such stuff.

In 2017, two drug vendors in Denmark were caught by the authorities after their Bitcoin transactions were traced. That event generated a lot of attention, and I though that the druggies no longer used Bitcoin for their sales.

Absolutely, every person caught for things like this is a success. Unfortunately it brings a bad name to Bitcoin but its no different to any currency, think about how much illegal activity is paid for in dollars!

I honestly don't care what people use their coins for. If there is one thing I can't stand, then it's people thinking they can decide for others how they should be using their coins. Let people buy and sell drugs and weapons with Bitcoin, why should it be our problem? Bitcoin may not exactly be the best tool for these kind of activities, but it's money in the end, and the only coin with a solid amount of liquidity in order to cash out big time.

The media doesn't care about Bitcoin being only used by brave people, they need to attract clicks and ad pennies, which is why they will continue to look for every bit of negativity they can find. If it isn't criminals using Bitcoin to pay for stuff, then it will be something else. You can't stop those with an incentive to keep releasing hype based articles.

Yes this is very unfortunate that bitcoin is used in illegal dealing and this is a reason that many state has banned bitcoin. I hope this news will discourage  those dealers to use bitcoin and bitcoin will be able to shed off the bad aspects of it like scam, drug dealings etc.

People still using Bitcoin for the Dark web activity are just a kind of "wannabe gangsta". I mean, come on, at least use a Bitcoin mixer for your privacy. Most people stopped to use Bitcoin there (at least I hope) and use the privacycoins. Authorities could arrest a lot of people there just because of such mistake

This is actually a good thing because it directly refutes Bitcoin's usefulness in underground deals. It's now up to everyone else to figure out that Bitcoin is a horrible tool for such purposes. The only way I see it be viable is when people use funded physical coins as means of exchange, because they allow everyone to transact offchain without ringing alarm bells. The only point of importance is that an extreme level of trust is needed to accept physical coins. It could be seen as a brick of gold. In both cases you are dealing with a fixed value that can't be split into smaller chunks. It is for that reason be more sufficient for high value deals.

It will probably discourage some people from using Bitcoin in particular. But that will just mean that they'd go and use another crypto. The issue with that is even if it's not Bitcoin being used, inevitably the media will just tie it back to Bitcoin in its reports since Bitcoin is the premier crypto.

I don't think so mate, people who was long time holder of bitcoin wouldn't be discourage patronizing digital currency. No other crypto could overpower bitcoin's usability, and with regards to druggist they should be afraid of the authorities because they will be traced using blockchain tracking based on history records.

Assuming there's other cryptocurrencies that offer higher degrees of privacy then they'd be crazy not to use it. Especially because as you say people can be tracked when using Bitcoin.

Lots of people are lazy. Not just criminals either. How many times have people been told to use a different password on each exchange, but they still end up using the same one on everything and then get their funds swiped?

I know bitcoin could be used in that way, I'm not personally against privacy but I do feel for the merit it brings it also brings a lot of negative publicity with such stories. Although I guess he wouldn't of been caught with true privacy.


They wouldn't have caught him just by chance, they can't go around checking every person's laptops for compromising evidence at airport security. I'm interested as to what less illegal activities you think would really benefit from privacy coins?

When I read the article, I concluded that this is not a person which is intelligent in a way to know how to protect his privacy. He is sending BTC from his dark web site to Localbitcoins, and there he have his full personal data - how difficult it was to connect the transactions with the name? They even not need to use NSA secret programs to track him, just some old police methods.

Also he then travel to USA with laptop which he use for his criminal activities, everything was stored in that laptop - so he handed the key evidence to police and now he is expecting at least 20 years in prison. I think he deserved what happened to him.

             It is really amazing how they traced down those guys just by their past transaction history. If you could earn in a hard way without breaking the law then why should you prefer on something so easy to get and has bigger risks? Some wouldn't really understand it, while some will defend their rights but well that depends on someone's perspective in life and how will make a living.

Maybe he relied on the semi-anonymity of bitcoin but then he is not that careful in dealing with his transactions. It is good though that they were able to catch some of the people who use bitcoin for illegal transactions and it is good news for the no coiners but maybe they would just use this reason again to not be involved with bitcoin seeing how easy the cryptocurrencies can be use in doing this.


It is hard to keep up with different passwords and it is easier to remember your password when you use it for several sites which is both an advantage and a disadvantage because once someone get hold of your password then there is already a possibility all of your accounts being accessed. One should make the extra effort of creating different log in credentials. Unfortunately for the druggist, he is too lazy to even try hiding his identity given that he is doing illegal.

yes, French National under pseudonym of OxyMonster was tracked down via his BTC transactions and was caught
https://www.bitcoinmarketinsider.com/dark-web-drug-dealer-oxymonster-arrested-by-tracking-bitcoin-transactions/

I get that for your Humblebundle account or something, but your high volume drug dealing account? Sheesh. You really have it coming if you're too dim to not think of the consequences of pisspoor opsec. It's not even pisspoor, it's flat out suicidal.

It seems that here we have a gathering of monkeys, who forget that if there was a first rise in BTC price & volume in 2011/2012 (an especially for the special discounts that were occurring on SilkRoad during 420 lol), that was because there was a very high need of BTC because of drug trades.
You, monkeys, would never have heard of BTC if those first transactions never took place.
Did you forget that BTC is the result of a very long cypher-punk maturation ?

Now, concerning the more educated people who intervened in that topic, they are right. Nobody should use BTC nowadays if someone's preoccupation is to be as stealth as possible.
As someone already mentioned it: BTC is only a pseudo-anonym crypto-currency.

For the ones who would like to find a good compromise between usability and anonymity, just check my signature, and  you will see that PRiVCY is the one that you should use if you want to reach a good balance for those 2 characteristics.

Druggies don't care and don't know, they assume because they can't track it no-one can. A little more research will reveal other privacy coins like monero and xspec which would be more useful to them

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that a coin with a 66% premine and with a team of developers that has managed to have 2 threads delete here on bitcointalk in less than a week is the solution....

Loved the royalty-free pictures on the ann ...

Indeed, a true anonymous coin, even their so-called "whitepaper" will be released in Q3, probably to keep it also anonymous till you get scammed your coins  ;D


If you would have a look at the sums that are been thrown back and forth on the darknet markets you're going to change your opinion.
It's almost a rule in this world, illegal activities will always get you more money for less work. A LOT more money!!!

It is good to hear that these people doing illegal stuff are caught. This kind of incident would help uplift the appearance of bitcoin to the public. I am hoping that these bad guys will be eliminated.

Yes, that's right. Even that will be a good news that now can do identify the drug users when using btc transactions still it's a big  mest for the reputation of this system. It's still gives a bad big impact to bitcoin and it only means that until now a lot of people using this system to do their illegal activities so for the governments it's still not good for their communities and maybe this will be the cause of already banning btc to other countries.

That is good news to bitcoin economy. Despite of being decentralized of this system and making transactions without the presence or knowledge of the third party still they make a solutions to the main problem of this system and that is probably using bitcoin in a lot of illegal transactions.

That is why I know that it is fake news whenever Main Stream Media focuses their attention on ransomware using Bitcoin just to demonize Bitcoin. Bitcoin will never hide your transaction just because you are a drug supplier. It is not afraid to record every single transaction. You will be revealed in no time.

I'm delight this happened to those who use BTC to buy drugs on the dark web and I'm sorry if this might have hurt any one by chance because this guys are among the reason why the government have negative thought about cryptocurrency.

There was a vice doc recently about credit card scammers that used BTC. The dudes were convinced they were 100% untraceable. It's a matter of time until they're caught, if they haven't been already. DYOR goes for criminals too I guess...

Very good, if Blockchain were adopted in public administrations corruption would be tracked easier too, like this guy was tracked dealing with drugs. The system is easy to use even for laymen and it's more transparent than any transparency system used by public administrations nowadays.

If the authorities want to take the criminals, it's better they incentive people to use Bitcoins! The problem is that in many cases the authorities have schemes with these criminals, so it's better to keep the traditional system working for the good sake of both parties... And if it's necessary to blame something, that Bitcoin be blamed as the criminal!

I honestly do not fancy privacy coins too much. I wish every human activity, from the governments, secret agencies to the smallest person on earth is open/transparent & there will never be need for such coins and similar services. But It is too dangerous to have some people with anonymity tools while others don't.

 What do you think will happen if places of hiding are taken away from hunted animals while the hunters alone are able to hide and hunt?  Total Massacre my dear!
Privacy/Anonymity is beautiful gift to us and animals. Do not take it for granted.

Right now if you use your bank card to buy something you have absolute privacy. The merchant or anyone else who sees your details can't delve into your history or know the slightest thing about your finances.

Unless you're diligent anyone could have a sift through your Bitcoin history based off knowing one address and link you everything you've ever spent or received. If that was the case with fiat there'd be absolute uproar.

This isn't an issue as hardly anyone is spending it. It certainly would make for serious discomfort if it was the world's primary payment mechanism.

There worst guys out there the drugs he was selling were relatively safe  .Also yeah he got very careless .Cant understand people the darkmarkets addresses are tracked and watched like hacks

Quoting from that post


Why didn't he do that? I suppose the market place had a system which kinda of acts like a bitcoin-mixer to keep the trades anonymous.Not using the system could be the reason in him getting traced? Actually yes, the quote below from the post

How dumb of him to not use a mixer?

Bitcoin settings are mostly due to anonymity features and can not be traced. But because of other regulations demanded by the government, it is now easy to track such criminal activities. And we need more druggists and other criminals who get rid of bitcoin to clear the name of bitcoin

Increasingly difficult for error settings to secure data as well as transactional convenience

I take this very positively, Bitcoin was always blamed as drug money by fools, now they will start understanding that Bitcoin is not a drug or extortion money.

I do not want people to think of BTC as a means of illegal activity

I wish they'd be smoked one after the other from all their hiding places because they abusing the use of bitcoin and it's hindering bitcoin from becoming a full-scale, widely-accepted currency as we all expect it to be. They are responsible for all the various governmental attempts to ban and bans we hear about and the earlier they are brought to book the better for us all.

That's great because all the evil is traced from TX iD Bitcoin.
All crimes must be destroyed which is caused by Bitcoin.

Robbery, extortion, drugs, the sale of children using Bitcoin is really a disgrace for Bitcoin.