AlphaBay darknet moderator goes in prison

[bitcoinst]

AlphaBay darknet moderator, who was paid in bitcoin, is sentenced to 11 years in prison

Bryan Connor Herrell, a 26-year-old resident of Colorado and former moderator of now-defunct darknet marketplace AlphaBay, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the news on Tuesday, saying that Herrell settled disputes between vendors and purchasers of AlphaBay and was paid in bitcoin (BTC) for his services. Herrell, who went by the monikers "Penissmith" and "Botah," also served as a scam watcher, to monitor attempts to defraud AlphaBay users.

"Herrell's sentence sends a clear message to criminals that the darknet is no safe haven for illegal transactions," said Sean Ragan, special agent in charge of the FBI's Sacramento Field Office. Herrell pleaded guilty in January of this year.

Bitcoin remains the most popular choice of crypto among darknet marketplaces, as The Block Research found out recently. Among the 49 darknet markets surveyed, about 98% of them support bitcoin. Monero is the second-most popular cryptocurrency — it's used by 45% of markets.

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/76699/alphabay-moderator-bitcoin-sentenced-11-years-prison


It looks like you can't feel completely safe on the darknet either. It is interesting how they managed to de-anonymize him, because such characters are very vain regarding their anonymity and security.
It is not possible that in the future we will face multiple arrests of the owners of the darknet.

[JakobFugger]

The alleged owner of this site was found dead a while ago in a Thai jail. The story of how they arrested him involves an email account on hotmail.

Pimp_Alex_91@hotmail.com It was an email address used right at the beginning of the site.

Most prisons are like that. They either find a small slip or someone decides to talk about others involved to get rid of the charges.

Even so, for some time they manage to live a luxurious life. And the thesis that keeps these sites anonymous remains alive. The FBI is unable to break the site, they manage to break the people involved with the site. But they do not catch all and soon more similar sites appear.

Anytime someone comes up with a new market name on the Dread forum or similar forums. The mainstream media shows these prisons as a great victory for the government, but what they do is actually demonstrate that these markets are increasingly strong, organized and accessible for almost everyone.

[GazetaBitcoin]

AlphaBay's founder sentence of 11 years behind bars makes me wonder even more why Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to a double life (?!?!?!) in prison plus 40 years, with no possibility of pardon. Laws made by imbecils, which were elected by other imbecils. Excepting the difference in sentences for the same offense, how can a man spend two lives in prison? Plus the 40 years which are as a bonus. 40 years he can spend (hopefully). Also 1 life. But nobody can spend a second life in prison.

That's in case the 40 years are counted first. But if his life is counted first, then he'll spend one life in prison and that's all. What wil the judge do hearing that the convinct was unable to spend a second life in prison, nor the extra 40 years? Will the judge rule to resurrect the poor man?!

[NotFuzzyWarm]

possible that in the future we will face multiple arrests of the owners of the darknet.

There are no "owners" of the darknet. The DN is simple a shit ton of IP addresses to sites that are not registered with any (legal) DNS meaning you have to know the exact ip address to access sites there.

Now arresting owners of DN sites, thass another matter

[Darker45]

AlphaBay's founder sentence of 11 years behind bars makes me wonder even more why Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to a double life (?!?!?!) in prison plus 40 years, with no possibility of pardon. Laws made by imbecils, which were elected by other imbecils. Excepting the difference in sentences for the same offense, how can a man spend two lives in prison? Plus the 40 years which are as a bonus. 40 years he can spend (hopefully). Also 1 life. But nobody can spend a second life in prison.

That's in case the 40 years are counted first. But if his life is counted first, then he'll spend one life in prison and that's all. What wil the judge do hearing that the convinct was unable to spend a second life in prison, nor the extra 40 years? Will the judge rule to resurrect the poor man?!

First, Bryan Herrell is not the founder of AlphaBay. He was just a moderator, someone who settles disputes among sellers and buyers. His other job as a scam watcher was to make sure the marketplace is free from scammers. The alleged founder, Alexandre Cazes, already died more than 3 years ago apparently by suicide, a week after his arrest and before he was extradited to the US.

In a way, Bryan was just a conspirator so his sentence is expectedly a lot lighter than Ross'. Ulbricht was actually convicted of multiple crimes.

As to Ross' sentence, each crime conviction comes with a separate imprisonment term, thus, having been convicted of multiple crimes, the penalty also adds up.

[Lorence.xD]

The reason that he got caught is not because of bitcoin transactions, Darknet is still connected to the Internet, and there are ways that you can trace someone even if they have a VPN or something, the only thing that can help you hide is either you are running a layered virtual machine and you have a lot of technical knowledge.

[davis196]

The reason that he got caught is not because of bitcoin transactions, Darknet is still connected to the Internet, and there are ways that you can trace someone even if they have a VPN or something, the only thing that can help you hide is either you are running a layered virtual machine and you have a lot of technical knowledge.

Darknet users usually use Tor,not VPNs.Maybe some of them are combining Tor and a VPN.
Using Tor+VPN is not enough to protect someone's anonymity on the darkweb.If your surfing the darknet,sharing even a little information about yourself can break your anonymity.
Anyway,another scammer goes into jail,which good for all of us.I hope that the day darknet marketplaces abandon Bitcoin as a payment method will come soon.

[OcTradism]

In the [Guide] Decent mixing methods, theymos warned that people should not trust any service which claims to give customers anonymity. Moreover, you have to consider the service you use technically and at the same time, do your research on local laws and Terms of Services of companies you send your anonymous coin to.

Most "tumblers", like the now-defunct bestmixer.io or even ChipMixer, aren't great because they are needlessly expensive, you're trusting the service not to run away with your coins, and you're trusting the service not to keep logs. Maybe they're the best current solution for small amounts where lasting anonymity isn't mission-critical, but in most cases you shouldn't use them.

Anonymity is very difficult, especially with blockchain-based systems where so much data has to be public, but also in other areas (eg. there are several known weaknesses with Tor). You should always operate with the expectation that any anonymity system you use will eventually fail you. If you're ever confident in your anonymity, then you're wrong.

[carlisle1]

It looks like you can't feel completely safe on the darknet either. It is interesting how they managed to de-anonymize him, because such characters are very vain regarding their anonymity and security.
It is not possible that in the future we will face multiple arrests of the owners of the darknet.

This only proves one thing i think and that is US authorities really has either access in each areas of Online sites or they truly over everything In the internet?
but this is also a good sign that everything that is doing Bad in this place can be Put behind bars.

The reason that he got caught is not because of bitcoin transactions, Darknet is still connected to the Internet, and there are ways that you can trace someone even if they have a VPN or something,

yes VPN won't save us now and tech can find us still if they wanted.

the only thing that can help you hide is either you are running a layered virtual machine and you have a lot of technical knowledge.

Do you Think that "Herrell" don't have Technical Knowledge considering that He is one Big name in Darknet?

there are other reason here why he got caught and that is what leakage sometimes bring.

[batang_bitcoin]

there are other reason here why he got caught and that is what leakage sometimes bring.

I watched a docu how Ross was caught through the forum by a tax inspector. The authorities know what they are doing and who they are chasing, they have several resources such as indexes and search engines to track as long as there are similar information published on the web. I don't dive in those depths as I know the risk and I'm not involved with it and someone told me that if ever you're ordering there, it's either you're talking to a real guy, scammer or someone from the authorities.

[SomeJasonGuy]

I wonder what happens after 11 years though. Does he get to keep all the BTC he's stashed away and is untraceable? It maybe a decent tradeoff for certain people if you're assured of being a multi-millionaire in 11 years.