> As far back as 2016, the account with that moniker bought names, addresses, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers on the underground marketplaces that traffic in illicit online goods. He took that personal info to open banking accounts in the names of unwitting strangers, and used those accounts to make trades based on insider information he gleaned from others

The reason they do things like sell fake information is that they need to engage with the person, who is already committing these crimes on their own, in some way that produces the least amount of additional criminal activity. Hence the fake info sale and then the purchase of real into, both of which the guy was advertising online before the agents engaged him.

This isn’t entrapment. He was advertising illegal services by his own choosing. The police didn’t make him do these crimes on the dark web (before they even got involved). They simply engaged with him as another one of his dark web customers to build a case.