Who is "Variety Jones"?

[AGD]

50831,ilovepoker,indolor12@yahoo.com,$1$H4TQ2Otq$ol7FqbrKj3Da.0oE4Pl2s1

Here's Curtis' info on Mt Gox from the "Dump" that I have a copy of.

Taxin' my memory, they were able to liquidate CR's Mt Gox account quicker than others were able to get moneys outta Karpeles' fist.

I already pointed out, that it looks like Karpeles had a lot more to do with SilkRoad, than he is admitting.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1053194.msg11318469#msg11318469

[S4VV4S]

Guys, are you sure PoM is Variety Jones?

Here's what I found (warning it's a long read): http://buymarijuanaseeds.com/community/threads/poms-proving-ground.89418/
Scroll down to KindRed's post.

In early 2004, a few weeks after leaving Seeds Direct, I left England to spend some time with a good friend of mine, Variety Jones.

That doesn't sound like PoM is Variety Jones to me, or at least that it wasn't at the time.

None the less the entire post is an interesting read.


EDIT: Who is RC?

[Gleb Gamow]

Guys, are you sure PoM is Variety Jones?

Here's what I found (warning it's a long read): http://buymarijuanaseeds.com/community/threads/poms-proving-ground.89418/
Scroll down to KindRed's post.

In early 2004, a few weeks after leaving Seeds Direct, I left England to spend some time with a good friend of mine, Variety Jones.

That doesn't sound like PoM is Variety Jones to me, or at least that it wasn't at the time.

None the less the entire post is an interesting read.


EDIT: Who is RC?

RC is Richard Baghdadlian aka Richard Calrisian.

Also, it was stated at the beginning of http://buymarijuanaseeds.com/community/threads/poms-proving-ground.89418/#post-813607

Relatively quick summary

For those who haven't been able to follow this sordid tale, and because I have it summarized somewhat elsewhere. This is not necessarily in proper or chronological order, and I apologize to the moderators if it's in any way unappreciated or excessive or whatever. Just tryin to help out! Anything that's not properly attributed, pretty well all of what's below in fact, is from posts in various threads mostly at PlanetGanja.com, by Plural of Mongoose.

Enjoy!

:

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 10:26 pm Post subject: Re: "Richard Calrisian" of Overgrow and Heaven's S

[S4VV4S]

Guys, are you sure PoM is Variety Jones?

Here's what I found (warning it's a long read): http://buymarijuanaseeds.com/community/threads/poms-proving-ground.89418/
Scroll down to KindRed's post.

In early 2004, a few weeks after leaving Seeds Direct, I left England to spend some time with a good friend of mine, Variety Jones.

That doesn't sound like PoM is Variety Jones to me, or at least that it wasn't at the time.

None the less the entire post is an interesting read.


EDIT: Who is RC?

RC is Richard Baghdadlian aka Richard Calrisian.

Also, it was stated at the beginning of http://buymarijuanaseeds.com/community/threads/poms-proving-ground.89418/#post-813607

Relatively quick summary

For those who haven't been able to follow this sordid tale, and because I have it summarized somewhat elsewhere. This is not necessarily in proper or chronological order, and I apologize to the moderators if it's in any way unappreciated or excessive or whatever. Just tryin to help out! Anything that's not properly attributed, pretty well all of what's below in fact, is from posts in various threads mostly at PlanetGanja.com, by Plural of Mongoose.

Enjoy!

:

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 10:26 pm Post subject: Re: "Richard Calrisian" of Overgrow and Heaven's S

Thanks, I must have missed that.
It's a LONG read

On a side note, it seems that Gypsy Nirvana along with RC and Dutchgrown has attempted to take out PoM.

-----------------------------

Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2006 7:54 pm Post subject: crazy shit goin on in real-time

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crazy shit, murder and international intrigue, going on in real-time!



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The above are some PGP signatures.

It is important that later, they be available to show that the items they refer to, are exactly as I received them.

If one or two of you could download them, and keep 'em safe fer a bit, I'd apprecitate it.

They will help to prove that Gypsy Nirvana and Dutchgrown, in a conspiracy with RC, contracted to have me killed.

Now, I'm gonna hafta out myself here in the next 24 hours - post up my own pic, name, and details, to confirm what's going on.

After 20+ years in the shadows, that ain't easy.

Bear with me during the process.

@edge - heh - sorry I told you to sell popcorn futures short last week - I just luv fucking with you.

[AGD]

Yeah, I know that comment. He is also talking about meeting ~shabang in England together with VJ. It is not clear if PoM has made up the other two personalities or if these really exist. It is interesting, that PoM states something like VJ was his mentor and a special personality and also Ross Ulbricht wrote in his journal about VJ beeing his mentor.

PoM was said to use his hacking skills to install backdoors on peoples computers. A guy who was trying to make an interview with PoM, later refused to do it, because he was scared of PoM.

Now there is another thing, that maybe doesn't fit to the PoM=VJ theory. Why would VJ give Ross the hint about PoM in the first place, when he knew about the bad image, that PoM gained. Why would VJ use the moniker Variety Jones anyway to sign up at Silk Road years later? There was no need for him to use that one. Just invent another one! People are strange sometimes, so it is still possible, that he left that trail.

As I said before, it is possible that another person, who knew about (or was involved in) the PoM/OG/ICMAG/GypsyNirvana drama, took over the moniker VJ years later, because he read the name in PoM's posts. It is pretty much unlikely, though. Too many similarities between PoM and VJ. It would be a huge coincidence.

edit:

Now, I'm gonna hafta out myself here in the next 24 hours - post up my own pic, name, and details, to confirm what's going on.

After 20+ years in the shadows, that ain't easy.

This lead to PoM losing the case against Gypsy Nirvana and his doxing as Thomas Clark: http://www.rollitup.org/t/whats-the-deal-with-gypsy-nirvana-ltd.88756/


Here is some more:

https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/gypsy-nirvana-arrested-in-manilla.57933/page-21
http://weedtracker.com/cannabis/topic/2912-pom-has-taken-over-icmag/
http://buymarijuanaseeds.com/community/threads/so-uhhh-icmag-com-wtf.92353/
http://www.yahooka.com/free-all/104239-who-plural-mongoose-why-should-i-care.html

edit2: some dead links removed
edit3: This story about PoM fucking Gypsy Nirvanas wife seemed to be true.
edit4: I read the whole thread on PlanetGanja. Too lazy to search for the link. Search for PoM, icmag, Gypsy. It is worth the time.
edit5: more links. very interesting. will still have to read.
http://myplanetganja.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=10505
http://myplanetganja.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=8677
http://myplanetganja.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6616&p=105079

[AGD]

http://myplanetganja.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=10505

Variety Jones in the news.

Postby Jesús Malverde » Tue Feb 10, 2015 4:04 am
VJ seems to be a persona PoM modeled his own public persona on. But like Bloke says, he seems in retrospect to have been a bargain bin simulacrum of the real thing. The fact that VJ has come through this with his anonymity publicly intact strongly suggests to me he was an informant or other asset used to infiltrate Silk Road. PoM may well have been an informant as well, used to collect intel on the international seed trade, but he was too crazy, unstable, incompetent and unreliable to have been an actual part of any team I think. If he was informing, he was probably just a free agent used to gather info then discarded when he lost access to info to sell and had served his purpose. I suspect the person who posted here claiming to be Colin Edwards was correct when he reported Thomas Clark was serving time as Her Majesty's guest for growing. The Thomas Clark identity was pretty much resolved as definitive by the final court case brought by GN against him under that name that finally ended his little charade he was running. Smokes claimed he was a published sci-fi author under a pen name after he met him in London but it's hard for me to imagine he possessed enough discipline to write books that a publisher would pay money for. A pity he has such a common name, it'd probably pretty trivially easy to track him down today and shake out his history if he had a name like Richard Baghdadlian.

Hey Smokes, what was the pen name Tom said he used? That was probably bullshit as well of course.

edit: from page 12 on, thay start to talk about this here topic.
color=purplehaze
Hello to the guys of MPG! When I started reading your topic "VJ is in the news" I already expected my topic here on BCT beeing mentioned somewhere in it. This entire VJ/DPR/SR/Green + the corrupt agents story is the best I followed in a long time. It was worth the time for me digging deeper and obv. you guys are also enjoying to find out which exact role VJ played in the whole scheme. Looks like it also brought some interesting characters back to life. Have a nice time and feel free to x-post.

edit2: Believe it or not. The topic on MPG was created on the same day as mine (I was 3 hours faster) and no, I am NOT smokebreaks, though it seems, that we both had the same idea at the same time, only that I have no OG,SR background whatever.

[AGD]

2. part of the SR story on wired: http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-2/

edit:

In an interview with Forbes, he said that he was actually the successor to Silk Road’s creator.

I think VJ has made this interview. Probably arranged to start the DPR legend of more than one DPR.

edit2: Like in the first part, VJ was taken out of the inner circle. Kinda hiding him and his role in the story, even though he was the main person behind the security of the early site, invented the DPR moniker, brought Ross to order the hit and probably alot more.

[AGD]

Joshuah Bearman who wrote the wired story comments on VJ: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/35yg0o/i_am_wired_contributor_joshuah_bearman_and_i_just/cr90avg

My story included Variety Jones in its longer version, when it was a 30,000 word (!) manuscript. But, it got complicated, for narrative purposes, to explain that relationship as space got tight. I mean, the story is already the longest Wired has ever published, and he just didn't have that much more room.

That said, Variety Jones/cimon clearly played an important role. He wasn't another user of the DPR handle, but he helped Ross conceptualize his role as leader. And he guided Ross toward the moral Rubicon of hiring a hit man. Variety Jones was the Silk Road's Rasputin, whispering into the Czar's ear.

[AGD]

Found this on reddit/darkmarkets
https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/366m8j/who_do_you_think_its_the_richest_vendor_from_all/

Who do you think it's the richest vendor from all DNMs? by jajamanja in DarkNetMarkets

[–]Vendor_BBMC 4 points 1 day ago*

He hasn't retired. I opt6ed not to name his last vendor identity, or his current one.

There's quite a lot of coincidence involved so our paths kept crossing.

I used to be quite a serious cannabis breeder, selecting only for cannabinoid ratios. Every few months I used to get on a train to Kingston-on-Thames to the Gypsy Nirvana shop, where he ran "Seeds direct". It was a strange shop, half of it was a tattoo parlour run by his ex-wife, who I remember being a goth Witches of Eastwick-type.

Later, he took over an angry, unpleasant weed forum called "Overgrow", but some of the data was lost, including "strainbase" which was a fascinating collection of data and descriptions of hundreds of weed varieties (this was in dailup 56k modem internet days)

Fortunately, I had copied and pasted every weed description into a massive word doc so I could print it on the laser printer at work. I had the only copy in existence, so I emailed them the word document and strainbase was saved.

Our paths crossed again when I started selling on Silk Road. I would sell out in a day or two days, so I recommended MrMerlins meth as the next-best alternative when I was out of stock. all the other vendors were scammers.

Meth was much more expensive in the UK at that time, and I had a figure in my head that was lower, which I shared with Merlin (who was a HUGE vendor of every drug. Meth was just a sideline). I checked that he could still make a profit at that price, and we undercut the market simultaneously.

Around this time, Silk Road was seized by the FBI. MrMerlin just disappeared, but another decent guy emerged with the same products called Hiniguel. He must have bought the wooden table he photographed his drugs on from MrMerlin, because the wood grain was the same. I recommended Hiniguel's meth when BBMC's sold out, my customers said it was as good as Merlin's.

I was surprised to hear that Hiniguel had pulled some kind of a scam after having a massive row with some SR2 admins, and possibly going off the rails a bit on his own supply. The SR2 admin may have known that Hiniguel was the same man who was Ross' mentor. Nobody else seemed to - they thought he was some crazy vendor pretending to be a millionaire.

On Agora, there was no other meth vendor to recommend who wasn't a scammer, so I encouraged "Hank" to sell Chinese Meth online (he was about the only non-Chinese street dealer, and he never loses his sense of humor even if he hasn't slept for a week - which you need to survive as a meth vendor).

Another vendor appeared, who seemed a bit shadowy. I noticed that a customer in the Kingston-ish area was buying a hell of a lot of meth, and doing the same from Hank. Whenever I sld to this customer, the shards I sent would appear on this other vendors listings, photographed on a table with a familiar wood grain.

This "importer" complained that i was recommending hanks meth. "Mine is every bit as good if you analyze it" (which I didn't doubt. It WAS Hank's meth, rebadged).

the vendor kinda gradually went nuts and scammed, after injuring himself at the gym (according to his profile). Hes now another vendor who appeared the day after the big customer west of london started ordering again. the buyer and vendor's names were similar and his profile was all the same karma/zen/ Nirvana talk.

I don't want to name him because he was PROBABLY Variety jones, and is basically a decent guy-ish. He doesn't sell meth in the UK and our paths haven't crossed since. Hank and I know his real name, and researched him separately. He owns a lot of properties, and few companies, and gained his pilots license in new zealand.

Thats pretty much everything I can add to the variety jones story. If I made a mistake in my logic at any point, the whole thing falls apart - its just my 2 cents.

[–]Vendor_BBMC 17 points 1 day ago*

MDMA is very cheap compared to meth.

I sell the highest-purity D-meth on the planet, with current exchange rates its back above 1 btc per gram. But BBMC are quite specialized, and only produce small batches. Cocaine makes much more money.

When Evo went down, the largest coke vendor in the BTVA lost 40btc - less than A DAY of sales. He was quite happy to lose 40BTC but hoover up the trustworthy Evo admins. They were offered jobs on sites he was building in exchange for going public about Evo, because they were essentially making themselves unemployed

The richest vendor will be the former "variety Jones", who became Mr Merlin, then Hiniguel. MrMerlin was a darknet legend, but because he was so closely involved with Silk Road he decided to rename and lose the reputation he'd built-up. Hiniguel had identical product listings a week later, I'm not sure that anyone else spotted that.Everybody was taking the piss out of Hiniguel's comments when SR2 stole the escrow, but they had no idea who he was.

He was one of my best customers. A New Zealander living near Heathrow. He has a pilot's license.

Its a shame, because he's gradually become a worse and worse vendor. Hes fine at first, but tends to scam then check into rehab.

Check out "Gypsy nirvana's fap tape" on youtube, where he films himself sacking an employee at one of his homes (Amsterdam, by the looks of it.

edit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1z8kge/looks_like_hiniguel_has_turned_scammer/
http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1z40dm/now_hiniguel_is_leaving_but_not_really_really_and/
http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/1xvdj3/the_avid_vs_hiniguel_on_the_sr2_forums_right_now/
http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1ysnms/i_think_hiniguel_is_defcondpr2stexo/
http://antilop.cc/sr/users/doctorclu/html/DoctorClu_posts_page_044_start_0645.html
http://antilop.cc/sr/users/doctorclu/html/DoctorClu_posts_page_048_start_0705.html
https://z34uj4opd3tejafn.torstorm.org/viewtopic.php?id=1428&p=125


on http://www.reddit.com/r/SilkRoad/comments/1z8kge/looks_like_hiniguel_has_turned_scammer/
there is another name invovled, that might wake up some people: Nathan Jordan aka hiniguel aka Vlad1m1r (on bitcointalk)

Hiniguel is not BlueGiraffe: I've spoken with BG and done business with him and he's a stand-up guy. Hiniguel is almost certainly Vlad1m1r aka N***** J***** , a Compliance Documentation Officer at B*** P*** (ever wonder how he did that "money laundering?"). I don't know whether or not he is Stealth/Defcon/Hux or the rest of the snicker Silk Road Administration and Development Team. But he knows exactly who they are. What's more, I suspect he's going to sing like Maria Callas once Inspector Morse picks him up for an interview.

(Old-timers may remember Vlad1m1r from his bitcoin "hedge fund" scam that he pulled off with the aid of his partner "Limetless," who disappeared soon thereafter and whose writing style was remarkably similar to Hiniguel's. But what do I know? I'm just the greatest mind the psychedelic world has ever known).

Oh what a tangled web we weave...

[AGD]

Now this one: https://redditjs.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/2xr3r5/on_ross_ulbrichts_mentor_variety_jones/

[–] jesuisgay 1 points 2 months ago

   I am convinced that Gypsy Nirvana became MrMerlin on silk Road, Hiniguel on Silk Road 2.0, the shadowman and now vendorZ ("vendor zen") on agora. He's always banging on about "karma". Hank and I know his name and address, but being BTVA members, we will never doxx anybody under any circumstances. I CAN tell you that he lives in Surrey (west of London), has a kind of french name, and has a private plane flying license. he used to be an estate agent and has a mobile food services company (selling hotdogs at festivals, i imagine). I have a gut feelingthat he may have moved here from New Zealand a long time ago.

Gypsy Nirvana is imprisoned in the Philippines and has been since his arrest in summer 2013... he was supposed to be extradited back to the UK but missed his plane presumably worried about US trying to nab him en route or extraditing him when he was back in the UK or something.

See more: http://gypsynirvana.blogspot.fr

His real name is Glen Foster he changed his name to Gypsy officially via deed poll after his ex girlfriend's tattoo shop so he could cash checks made out in the company name in his personal bank account. I don't doubt that he has other aliases and if anyone's really interested then there's plenty of info freely available online.

The real person of interest in all this is Thomas Clark/ PoM/ Variety Jones/Cimon.

I'm fairly certain that he's the CW that cirrus used who is mentioned in gwern's latest post in the Silk Road sub which is why he's disappeared and not been mentioned in relation to any SR arrests despite clearly having a lot to do with the site behind the scenes.

it doesn't matter how you connect the dots, but it always ends in scamming/drama/arrests.

[AGD]

*bump*

[OVRGRO]

just look at my handle... i think strongly that pom is vj  maybe it's just hope lol

[AGD]

just look at my handle... i think strongly that pom is vj   maybe it's just hope lol

It's practically proven, that POM is VJ is Thomas Clark. It's still unknown if he was a mole at OG/SR/SR2 or not. I am already pretty much convinced, that he was at least at SR.
What was your handle at OG btw?

edit: grammar

[Mikel]

Just want to thank everyone in this thread for being so diligent about finding info.  As someone who finds every little twist and turn in the Silk Road Saga interesting, there's nothing better than the work that lamoustache/gwern/AGD/etc do.  Seriously, bravo.

[AGD]

Just want to thank everyone in this thread for being so diligent about finding info.  As someone who finds every little twist and turn in the Silk Road Saga interesting, there's nothing better than the work that lamoustache/gwern/AGD/etc do.  Seriously, bravo.

You are welcome to post additional info, which I guess you have, based on the date of your last posting before this one.

[AGD]

http://allthingsvice.com/2015/05/27/silk-road-from-the-inside-moderator-ssbd-tells-his-story/

[AGD]

Now lets VJ talk for himself:

http://ia801506.us.archive.org/27/items/gov.uscourts.nysd.422824/gov.uscourts.nysd.422824.256.0.pdf

Ulbricht was aware of this practice, as reflected in Exhibit F, which is an excerpt of a chat with a co-conspirator found on Ulbricht’s computer:
(2011-12-19 17:12) vj: so vendors that mention a buyer’s handle to bitch about
fucking feedback should be fed to the sharks
(2011-12-19 17:13) vj:
ones that do that AND keep records of the addresses
should be fed to ants, and then to sharks
(2011-12-19 17:13) vj:
lttm keeps addressess
(2011-12-19 17:13) vj:
Paperchasing keeps addressses
and threatens to spread
names of anyone who dares give him a 4/5
(2011-12-19 17:13) myself:
how do you know all of this?
(2011-12-19 17:14) vj:
I read the forums
(2011-12-19 17:14) myself:
I should probably do that

[Neg]

http://allthingsvice.com/2015/05/27/silk-road-from-the-inside-moderator-ssbd-tells-his-story/

That's a very interesting read. I'm not even sure how they can justify arresting someone for merely being a moderator of a message board, especially one that was as far as I'm aware separate from the actual site. He didn't commit any crimes or was involved in the drug dealing aspect of it. What was he actually arrested for? The article doesn't seem to say.

[AGD]

http://allthingsvice.com/2015/05/27/silk-road-from-the-inside-moderator-ssbd-tells-his-story/

That's a very interesting read. I'm not even sure how they can justify arresting someone for merely being a moderator of a message board, especially one that was as far as I'm aware separate from the actual site. He didn't commit any crimes or was involved in the drug dealing aspect of it. What was he actually arrested for? The article doesn't seem to say.

Yeah, I find it bizarre in general, how some computer related crimes are treated by the US judiciary system. DDos attack=10 years???

[AGD]

http://twitchfilm.com/2015/05/interview-alex-winter-ventures-down-the-silk-road-in-deep-web.html

The mysterious Variety Jones, supposedly Ross' mentor, is brought up in the film, just a little bit. Could you elaborate on his role in the film?  Where does this guy fit in?

There was stuff I could not put in for legal reasons, there were other elements that might cross ethical lines with the ongoing trial. I did not want to insert myself into the trail, nor have an impact on the outcome one way or another. If I had some bombshell truth or something, maybe. But I know a few of the architects of The Silk Road who are at large, but they are sources, and that is who that runs.

Variety Jones in there because he is an example of just how many people are embedded in the the story of The Silk Road. From what we know, Variety Jones had extensive history going back to the late 1980s, in the BBS/UseNet era. These people were using encrypted email back then. Global business people with wives or children with savvy on the political side, the business side and the technology side of things.

He is one of these types of people. Mark Karpelès [ed: The CEO of former Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox] comes up in the trial. Whether Karpelès has any real culpability we do not know. But what we do know is that there are a lot of very sophisticated people in these communities for a long time.

Read more: http://twitchfilm.com/2015/05/interview-alex-winter-ventures-down-the-silk-road-in-deep-web.html#ixzz3bVNiXNAz