Everything I said is true.

>Deterrence is known to have a very limited effect on behaviour.

It is insanely effective when actually enforced. It's not effective when the goal is to make it seem ineffective so that people can evade the system.

>In this case, it's far simpler to prosecute the source.

The "source" is a tool that tomorrow can be in Russia or CHina and you can't prosecute.

The certainty or likelihood of being caught if a far more effevtive deterrent, but require effort, focus, and resources by law enforcement.

It's a resource constraint problem and a policy choice. If "they" wanted to set the tone that this type of behavior will not be tolerated, it would require a concerted multi agency surge of investigative and prosecutorial resources. It's been done before, if there's a will there's a way.