Consider that if I know your address, I can order drugs delivered to you. Then you take the sting. I would think that this factor and the desire to catch the sellers more than the buyers motivates law enforcement to focus on disrupting the chain and tracking down sellers more than pursuing all but the highest volume buyers.

That's true, somewhat. If you read the history of the SR1 takedown, you see that the FBI interviewed buyers whose packages had been intercepted by Customs. And from what I've seen, there's no indication that any of them were prosecuted.

But on the other hand, someone did have heroin sent to Brian Krebs, and planned to trigger a SWAT upon delivery.[0] It was just luck that he found out about it in advance, and filed a police report. For less clueful victims, it's still arguably a substantial risk.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/10/hacker-who-sent-me-heroi...

> If you read the history of the SR1 takedown, you see that the FBI interviewed buyers whose packages had been intercepted by Customs. And from what I've seen, there's no indication that any of them were prosecuted.

At least 65 SR1 buyers are known to have been arrested: https://www.gwern.net/DNM-arrests

Wow. Great work! Thanks.

Also there is plausible deniability. "I don't know why drugs showed up to my house. Look! That's not even my name...clearly a mistake."

FYI fake names is bad OpSec; it's a great way to get a 'care package', i.e. a controlled delivery.

You have just as much plausible deniability with or without a fake name.

Yeah, the postal system is watching. So you gotta have name and address match. Some post offices won't even deliver to unknown names. And some tiny post offices know every resident, by name. I know, because I've received mail addressed to my name and the five-digit postal code. It was a very small town.

That's interesting. I've always used a fake name when conducting P2P transactions online. For instance on RedditGifts, I've always used a fake name. This backfired once when a housemate sent a very expensive chess set sent from Singapore back and the sender never got it. Other than that I've had a good experience.

What if they just record you taking the package, follow you home, get a warrant based on probable cause, and search your house and find the package?

The book "Drug Interdiction: Partnerships, Legal Principles, and Investigative Methodologies for Law Enforcement" was written by law enforcement, for law enforcement. Here is an excerpt from the section about controlled deliveries:

>The undercover agent will attempt to solicit any statements in which the suspect may admit knowledge of the parcel delivery. The key to any parcel investigation is for law enforcement to prove that the subject had knowledge of the parcel’s contents. This is critical to the prosecution of the suspect in a parcel investigation. It is virtually impossible to litigate a criminal case without proving knowledge of contents.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions. Stay safe out there.

That's certainly a risk.

If you're using a market that's not compromised, you trust sellers' ratings. Sellers who were police honeypots would arguably not have high ratings. Unless, of course, police had created user bot armies.

From what I've read, you place a test order, shipped to your third-party address. Relying on tracking information, you anonymously hire someone to "steal" the package, with the contents as part of the payment. To get the rest of the payment, they need to message you anonymously, and you pay well-mixed Bitcoin. You never actually meet them again.

If that works out, you place a real order, shipped to the same address. And hire someone else anonymously to "steal" the package, and drop it somewhere for you. And then pay them anonymously, with well-mixed Bitcoin. But it's gotta be a decent payment, comparable to what they could get by selling the contents.

Too iffy for me.

define 'well-mixed Bitcoin' please?

Is there a threshold that you'd use? How do you judge whether a BTC tx is well-mixed?

Between my meatspace identity and Mirimir, which is my least ~anonymous persona, well-mixed means mixing successively by three different services: A, B and C. I mix via Tor, using Whonix VM instances, and Electrum wallets. So three Whonix/Electrum instances: X, Y and Z.

    source to X via A
    A to Y via B
    B to Z via C

Bitcoin in Whonix/Electrum instance Z is available to spend, or transfer to another VM.

For transfers among ~anonymous personas, I just mix once or twice, depending on the desired compartmentalization level.

Damn, I was brain-dead when I wrote that. Make it:

    source to X via A
    X to Y via B
    Y to Z via C

> What if they just record you taking the package, follow you home, get a warrant based on probable cause, and search your house and find the package?

If someone sends a package to my house, my taking it into my apartment is evidence of about nothing. Why you would send it somewhere without plausible deniability—say, a PO box you only use for drugs—is beyond me.

Furthermore, they also need to demonstrate you had knowledge of the contents before opening. That's damn hard.

> What if they just record you taking the package, follow you home, get a warrant based on probable cause, and search your house and find the package?

What if you never opened the package before the warrant was executed? If you never opened it you can't possibly know what's in it. And if anything receiving a package from a sketchy sender and _not_ immediately opening it sounds totally reasonable.

Until they shoot your dogs and put you in cuffs...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_may...

> Prince George's County Police later arrested two men in a drug trafficking plan involving the shipment of large parcels of marijuana to addresses of uninvolved residents. After each parcel was delivered outside the addressee's home, another individual would retrieve the drugs. Police seized six packages containing 417 pounds (189 kg) of marijuana.[9]

Yep, SOP. And the police totally blew it. If they had just contacted the mayor, they could have setup an ambush for the pickup operative.

Sure. But they would use your name.

And, due to the anonymity of the new market, there's no benefit to busting the chain if you bust a buyer. You can't get the buyer to snitch on who their supplier is.

I really doubt that in a country where Swatting resulting cops killing the innocent and unarmed video game players in their house.

> My thoughts exactly. People still have to provide some address to receive it, and if they are buying from a cop then when the package shows up the cops will be watching and when you grab it, you're busted.

> Seems like you still need some level of trust, but please correct me if I've got it wrong.

Is it illegal to receive drugs if you don't know it's drugs? Is merely bringing a package into your home, without inspecting its contents, illegal?

If they bust you with an unopened package, they will try to get you to admit that you ordered it. And here's where it gets tricky.

If you ordered from a police honeypot seller, they have some reason to think that you did order. So if you at first deny ordering, and later admit that you did, you've just admitted to lying to them. Penalties for that can be worse than ordering illegal drugs ;)

Denial of guilt is not considered lying. Otherwise, every contested guilty verdict would have a perjury charge attached. Just say no. Or say nothing. Or one word: lawyer.

Say nothing. I think you can stay quiet but if you talk and lie to FBI, you will be Martha Stewart. Totally unrelated to the original case and they can prove this very easily, 2 FBI agents with detailed notes vs you.

Probably not but most people who order drugs online will probably use them at some point, it's not like the drugs will remain in a sealed box forever.