00:00:09:17 - 00:00:42:14 Speaker 1 Hello and welcome to Darknet Demystified. I'm your host, Sam Bent, a.k.a. DoingFedTime, a.k.a. 2happytimes2. And today we're going to have a podcast that focuses on one thing terrible vendor OPSEC. Today will highlight a particular case involving a few morons and a red notebook. All the names in this podcast are real, and this is a real case with real feds, real drugs and real morons. 00:00:43:08 - 00:01:21:23 Speaker 1 Now I've seen my share of infosec and opsec fails. For those of you that are new to the podcast or have never seen my YouTube channel Operational Security or OPSEC is a process that helps organizations identify and protect sensitive information from people who aren't supposed to have it. It focuses on protecting an organization's methods, processes and activities. Basically, everything that they do, it tries to protect information security or infosec is the process of protecting information by mitigating information risks to begin with. 00:01:22:12 - 00:02:04:06 Speaker 1 It encompasses the technology's policies and procedures designed to protect sensitive information from unauthorized access use, disclosure, disruption modification, or destruction. In short, OPSEC focuses on protecting the organization's operations, while InfoSec focuses on protecting the information itself. So first, the Darknet vendor that we're discussing and by various aliases, those aliases included Trusted Trap House and Trusted Trapper, Trusted Trap, trustable trap House, tree Trap, Golden Trails and Popcorn plug. 00:02:05:08 - 00:02:30:07 Speaker 1 Yeah, that's a lot. It's also a lot to keep track of. It's a lot of public and private keys to manage as well. Also, there's really no reason why you'd want to have this many aliases, a Darknet vendor. All it really does is make your life a lot more complex and complicated. This Darknet vendor, his real name is Rick Schiffner. 00:02:30:07 - 00:03:11:20 Speaker 1 He was the one who is primarily cited as the individual that ran this account or accounts. In this case, it sold oxycodone pills, crystal meth, heroin and cocaine or so the criminal complaint that's out of the Eastern district of Virginia states. According to the FBI agent that is in the criminal affidavit for one of his co-defendants, the markets in which he was an active member included areas a.S.A.P, Bohemia, Dark Fox, incognito, kerberos kingdom, nemesis, royal market, toreador, torres versus and world market. 00:03:12:06 - 00:03:42:02 Speaker 1 So we have this darknet vendor operating all these different accounts under all these handles selling various hardcore drugs. Like you would think that he's doing this to keep a separate identity, right? Well, at the end of the day, a lot of the time they used matching keys. They used the same introduction on their vendor page and like repeatedly signed with the same kind of signatures. 00:03:43:13 - 00:04:10:03 Speaker 1 Aside from those glaring similarities, they also sold the same drugs. So while they had all these different vendor names, they maintained these common aspects throughout all these accounts where, you know, when they're done saying something, they put, you know, the last three letters of like, you know, the kinda, quote unquote, signature. They're all the same. So it's very easy to figure out that they're all the same by doing this. 00:04:10:03 - 00:04:48:05 Speaker 1 So the really the obvious question is why they even bother making all these different handles, like why do you even bother having different PGP keys and trying to make all these different identities that are supposed to be separate identities when at the end of the day you tie them all together with something as stupid as like a signature at the end of a product description or like a welcome page or like your images are all the same for all these different accounts with the same products In the affidavit, the Feds list seven different controlled buys that they did on four different Darknet markets throughout this whole investigation. 00:04:49:05 - 00:05:14:22 Speaker 1 Most had addresses of Gainesville, Virginia, but the feds also had the packages sent to places like L.A. and Boston. The leader of the conspiracy, which is this guy, Rick Schaffner, who I mentioned earlier, also had two co-defendants, and one was named Devin Langer. Really, we're not going to talk about much because there's really not much out there about Devin. 00:05:15:16 - 00:05:44:00 Speaker 1 Seems really quiet in comparison to the third codefendant who is Veronica Dittman. Now, Rick and Devin lived together from what stated in the affidavit. And on May 5th, while doing surveillance, the feds ended up searching the trash at Rick and Devins home, which is a pretty common practice for them, and found this weird red spiral notebook with a handwritten title. 00:05:44:15 - 00:06:23:11 Speaker 1 It said, quote, Gratitude list. Rick's Please don't touch Rick Scheffler, unquote. Of course, the feds respected Rick's privacy and immediately put the notebook down to it. That's not what happened. The feds noticed that there were these different tabs there were color coded. There were marking different sections in the book. So they inspected it closer. And the tabs said things like in cognita, oh, and a.S.A.P and dark fox. 00:06:24:04 - 00:06:54:08 Speaker 1 And you probably know where I'm going with this. So inside the notebook were several different handwritten pages. So, for example, one page had a quote that said December 28th order unquote, numbered one through 16. Each line had a unique moniker for his customers. Each was crossed out. The buyer's list contained both first and last names and were in parentheses to the side. 00:06:55:12 - 00:07:22:09 Speaker 1 So at the end of the day, what was it that we were actually dealing with here? Well, according to the affidavit that was given by this FBI agent, we're dealing with this total moron who thought it would be a great idea to write down the names of his clients on the Darknet markets that he had taken orders on to record their names in a notebook and then do absolutely nothing to try to destroy it. 00:07:22:18 - 00:07:48:17 Speaker 1 And essentially, he handed it over to law enforcement through his own ignorance about OPSEC by putting this thing in the trash. The one thing he could have done to make it a little bit easier for law enforcement would have been to have a gift wrapped and put a nice bow on it like that really would have been the only thing that would have made it easier for them short of him just walking in and handing into the feds. 00:07:48:18 - 00:08:18:20 Speaker 1 They spent a lot of time researching different cases, looking into different security operations, issues that Darknet vendors have encountered previously. I study the mistakes that led to their arrest and incarceration, and I did this purely to avoid making the same mistakes and avoid incarceration myself. This case is not the worst case that I've ever heard of in terms of massive breaches of OPSEC, but is definitely one of the most careless. 00:08:20:08 - 00:08:44:15 Speaker 1 There is absolutely no need for this guy to do a lot of the stuff that he did. I mean, we've just covered one thing, but we're going to cover a whole lot more. If you're running a business that sells like chocolates. Saving customer info is actually a good thing. You know, a majority of the legitimate businesses try to do that, whether it's to market that information and resell it or it's just to have that information on hand. 00:08:44:15 - 00:09:16:05 Speaker 1 So when you do email campaigns or things like that, you have people who have already bought from you or if you like, the chocolates business or flowers, birthdays, anniversaries, stuff like that, very important things to kind of remember and reach out to customers that those times. But as a Darknet vendor, you don't have an email list, right? You don't use email really, in most cases with a lot of Darknet vendors and Darknet buyers. 00:09:16:05 - 00:09:34:11 Speaker 1 Like I know I didn't use it. And there are like a few people who I had seen that did use it. When they did, it was exclusively on Tor. So they're now using Gmail right there and none of that even like, like Protonmail, none of that, no clear net mail whatsoever. But it's still just a bad idea in general. 00:09:35:00 - 00:09:59:11 Speaker 1 It makes no sense for them to retain this information or write it down. A Darknet vendor only deals with people's personal information when they're printing out shipping labels to put on their drug packages. When doing so, they should print out the label and package the item. And then once a package is sent, they have nothing left. Nothing with that individual's information should ever be left over. 00:09:59:11 - 00:10:26:22 Speaker 1 It should be gone. No darknet buyers anyways. Would want their information saved on anyone's computer or in a red notebook that says Do not open. I've argued with a few different people on a couple of different sites about things like Darknet vendor saving information. Some have told me that the vendors or others that they've dealt with save their information so that they can extort them, if true. 00:10:27:00 - 00:10:52:04 Speaker 1 At the end of the day, a very poorly planned extortion attempt to be in with you should never pay a darknet vendor who's extorting you for one extortionists. They just they're going to do it again If you pay them the first time. It's never going to stop. First, let's think about this for a minute. How will that person who's a Darknet vendor supposedly currently write, how are they going to report you? 00:10:53:20 - 00:11:15:01 Speaker 1 I mean, they're actively breaking the law, right, As a Darknet vendor, are they just going to ring up their local FBI field office and be like, hey, you sold Mike some drugs in the darkness and this is what it was? And here's his address. Right. And it's kind of outlandish. So let's say the Darknet vendor gets busted and he keeps a list of customers. 00:11:15:10 - 00:11:45:08 Speaker 1 This is another talking point that people have said to me, and presumably this is done so that, like the Darknet vendor can hold on to the data so that if he is busted, we can have a quote unquote, bargaining chip. And when I say that, I mean like people say or try to assume that Darknet vendors will maintain customer lists so that if they get arrested, they can, quote unquote, give the list to authorities. 00:11:45:18 - 00:12:27:23 Speaker 1 This is an incorrect and a foolish assumption, and I'll tell you why. If you have a list of customers and the feds raid you, they to have their list, like why would they need you? So if we look at a more significant point from like a logical standpoint, if this were something that Darknet vendors actively practiced. Aside from a few morons, because there are definitely a couple of Darknet vendors who have saved information like this idiot and like a lot of them saved it, not necessarily like filled with this guy did just to write it down and throw it in the trash, but to try to extort people. 00:12:28:00 - 00:12:51:13 Speaker 1 So if that's true, and I have no doubt that has happened, then why not just as a Darknet vendor, why don't just go to the Yellow Pages and find a list of random people like a Darknet vendor can say they send any drug to any person at any time, just like any individual can make a claim about anything to law enforcement at any time. 00:12:51:20 - 00:13:10:04 Speaker 1 But at the end of the day, if all I have to do is a dark no vendor to say someone's name and address, I can go right to the Yellow Pages online and and find everyone that's listed in the city and write all their names out on a piece of paper. Now, does that mean when I get busted because I have this list of people's names that I instantly get to go free? 00:13:11:09 - 00:13:39:07 Speaker 1 No, because at the end of the day, the fact of the matter is I have to prove that I sold drugs to someone or send someone drugs. They have to have drugs. If they don't have drugs, they have to have some other form of evidence that corroborates the story. If you did have a Darknet vendor that turned into a rat, should they would have to be able to prove this in some way. 00:13:40:00 - 00:14:06:02 Speaker 1 And at the end of the day, just someone saying, I sold John, Patty and Paul some coke is not. Nine times out of ten, that's not going to cut it. If this weren't true, anyone to say that anyone did anything at any time and you do see that with some cases like there, there are definitely some cases out there where that's actually happened, but it's very rare and it's not usually related to narcotics. 00:14:06:02 - 00:14:31:09 Speaker 1 You typically see it with other other kind of cases. In turn, any individual could be arrested and convicted solely based on circumstantial evidence. If this was actually the case. Here's the biggest reason that it's a terrible idea to keep customer information or data. If you're a Darknet vendor out there, forget all the other stuff we talked about. This is the really the big thing. 00:14:32:07 - 00:15:02:18 Speaker 1 It'll get you more time. When I say it'll get you more time, I mean a lot of time if I have. For an example, let's do a hypothetical. I've been operating as a Darknet vendor for three years, but when I get caught, the feds can only prove that I was operating as a dark vendor for one year, and the amount of time that I'm likely to get in prison is going to be significantly less than it would be if I was doing it for three years. 00:15:04:01 - 00:15:28:14 Speaker 1 And why is that? What's the matter? Well, this is because at the end of the day, it's all because of how the federal government estimates the number of drugs sold. And this is where we get into an area called ghost weight, which is insane. So, for example, if I were to sell a pound of cocaine, for example, every week, the feds, in turn would argue in court. 00:15:28:14 - 00:15:52:15 Speaker 1 And at the end of the day, I sold 23 kilos of cocaine. Even if they only call me with £1 of cocaine, if I recorded this in a notebook or someone else claimed it. Say, I claim that John Smith, for example, bought this pound every week. Like in Indiana. No book or someone read it on me and said this and it was corroborating evidence for it. 00:15:54:01 - 00:16:18:18 Speaker 1 How the feds would end up sentencing me wouldn't be for the £1 of cocaine they actually found on me. Rather, it would be for £1 of cocaine for every week because they have corroborating evidence that says that they sold that much for that long. So instead of getting charge of £1 of cocaine, I'd be charged with possessing 23 and a half kilos of cocaine because that's what I sold in a year. 00:16:19:02 - 00:16:41:17 Speaker 1 And there is a massive, massive difference between the sentence that you're going to get for those two things. £1 of cocaine versus 23 keys. This concept in the feds, like you said, is known as ghost weight, and it's really prevalent throughout the system. They're giving you a sentence for drugs that you're thought to have sold and they can literally just estimate this number. 00:16:42:03 - 00:17:00:15 Speaker 1 I know a ton of men in feds right now that are doing 20 plus years and never got caught with drugs on them at the end of the day. These guys, though, they were moving massive amounts of product and it's fairly well known. And nine times out of ten, there's a bunch of people who already ratted on them. 00:17:00:15 - 00:17:24:05 Speaker 1 So like, this is why a lot of these guys got convicted in the end. But if the feds knew that I was operating and selling cocaine in our hypothetical situation for three years instead of one year, they would instead charge me with the sale of 70 kilograms of cocaine. Now we're just in our example. We're talking about selling one customer £1 every week. 00:17:24:10 - 00:17:48:12 Speaker 1 Now, imagine I had more than just this one customer that I dealt with on a weekly basis. Imagine I had three, five, ten. You see where I'm going with this? You can see how extreme a federal sense could become. The more information that the feds have and this is exactly why I would never see of customer information as a Darknet vendor. 00:17:48:12 - 00:18:15:08 Speaker 1 It's so idiotic. So at the end of the day, we know what would happen to the Darknet vendor. That guy like getting forever and a day. So what kind of repercussions with the buyer face? Right. So our hypothetical character, John Smith, in this case, what would he be looking at? Well, how would probably go is the feds would go to John's house and knock on his door and ask him a couple questions and might go through his mail. 00:18:15:08 - 00:18:30:16 Speaker 1 They might try to get to his phone conversation like there's a bunch of different things they might end up doing going through his email, stuff like that. Looking at his Amazon account, they might wait for him to get a package in that they think is from a Darknet vendor and they may try to get a warrant to open it up. 00:18:31:02 - 00:18:53:23 Speaker 1 They might send him a love letter. They might try to do a controlled delivery. And like a controlled delivery basically is when the feds try to deliver the package themselves that has drugs in it or they know is some kind of contraband. And sometimes they do the contraband out, sometimes they leave, it ends. This occurs typically when they can't prove that you ordered it, as in the case with the darknet. 00:18:54:00 - 00:19:14:12 Speaker 1 Instead, they bring it to you and tell you that you need to sign for it or try to get you to, like, verbally confirm that it's your package. Sometimes they stick equipment inside the box so that they know when you've opened it and they might time a raid around that time. Maybe we open the box, then boom, come in. 00:19:14:15 - 00:19:35:05 Speaker 1 You have options to circumvent that kind of stuff and we'll get to in a minute. But in the case of a love letter, like I was talking about before, where you're going to get this letter that says, Hey, we got your package, come on down to the post office and you can pick it up, you know, And when you do, you're going to get arrested. 00:19:35:16 - 00:19:57:07 Speaker 1 Like by you showing up for that, you're acknowledging that the package is yours and you're taking possession of it. The solution to that is to throw away the love letter or to not sign for the package when they're trying to do the controlled delivery. One thing you have to remember is a Darknet vendor nine times out of ten there, they know these things and they're never going to ship. 00:19:57:07 - 00:20:19:23 Speaker 1 A package that requires signature just doesn't happen. My point is that anyone who's done their due diligence regarding operational security in that kind of darknet setting will know what's what and what's going on during a controlled delivery and what's to be said, what's not to be said. What kind of tactics, Ellie, or of law enforcement is actually using? 00:20:21:11 - 00:20:48:20 Speaker 1 You'd see how keeping a customers information doesn't do anything for a Darknet vendor besides completely screw them over, infinitely way worse than it would have been initially. So that's why I like I laugh when people say like, Oh, X-Y-Z Darknet vendor is trying to extort me. And typically the Darknet vendor, the they claimed would leave their information to law enforcement is the guy that I'm talking about. 00:20:49:02 - 00:21:21:15 Speaker 1 Like this would be the equivalent of me going and telling law enforcement right now that you and I are like in business that you're buying drugs from me while listening to this podcast. Like, you know right now that that's false. I know that that's false. And there's no supporting evidence to corroborate that story whatsoever. As such. Like, you may be questioned, but like, that's as far as it's going to go unless, you know, like you did scared and you tell on yourself or which a lot of you have done. 00:21:22:03 - 00:22:01:23 Speaker 1 Now, just because you won't get charged with a crime doesn't mean that, like law enforcement is not going to look into the potential for a link or some kind of incriminating evidence that might exist. There have been hundreds of thousands of people who voluntarily snitched on themselves, if not millions like this could be as simple as getting nervous that law enforcement is there to begin with and wanting to, quote unquote, just be honest with them because you think they'll respect your honesty or some deluded reason that they try feeding you or that you saw on like cops or a CSI or one of these ridiculous shows are just filled with propaganda. 00:22:01:23 - 00:22:18:08 Speaker 1 And the truth is, like, they want you to incriminate yourself. And that's where they're talking to you. They're talking to you because they don't have enough information to arrest you. If they had enough information to arrest you, they're going to waste their time talking to you. They want you to slip up. They were going to say the wrong thing. 00:22:18:11 - 00:22:50:09 Speaker 1 They were going to contradict yourself. That's what they're looking for. A, want to put you in prison because at the end of the day, it'll get them a promotion or it'll get them closer to a promotion, you know, And these are the same people who will tell you that anything you say will be used against you. Now, if you and I met right, and we're on the street or we're at work or wherever, and I say to you, Hey, listen, anything you say to me, I'm going to use it against you. 00:22:50:09 - 00:23:13:19 Speaker 1 First off, like you're going to think that I'm some kind of weirdo and I probably have a serious mental health issue, you know? Secondly, I highly doubt that you're going to be willing to to cheer me up or tell me your secrets or, you know, tell me about something illegal you've done or whatever. It's not going to be something that's going to turn out well for me. 00:23:13:19 - 00:23:46:11 Speaker 1 You're not going to get to this point where it's like, Hey, let me tell this guy my my deepest secrets because I want to quote just be honest with him. Absolutely not. So getting back to Rick, Rick ended up getting arrested on August 11, 2022. Typically when dealing with the federal government, it can take years, if not half a decade, to get to the point where you're pleading guilty or signing a plea deal. 00:23:47:14 - 00:24:14:22 Speaker 1 That said, Rick, like moved at breakneck speed, like Rick's like a NASCAR driver. And like, as I said, he was he he was arrested in August and ended up pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances in December, which for the feds is extremely fast. If you want to move that quick, they have no problem with it. They'll let you plead guilty and bend over and they'll, you know, just grab some Vaseline and get ready, because that's what's going to happen. 00:24:14:22 - 00:24:36:12 Speaker 1 They're going to screw you. I went through his paperwork, Rick, to see if he told on his case or but I didn't see any mention of anything shady like that. It just seemed to me like the dude, like, got caught and pled guilty almost immediately, which is really crazy. I think a lot of that has to do with like, it's like a divorce, like a lot of people. 00:24:36:12 - 00:24:56:01 Speaker 1 Like, I just want to get it over with. I just want to get it over with. And they end up doing these kind of things and pleading guilty, thinking it's going to be over with quicker and it's just not the case. And the feds will do a lot of tricky stuff like they'll put you in a really bad county jail and let you just sit there, for example, and a lot of people will plead guilty just to get out of that county jail because it sucks so bad. 00:24:56:01 - 00:25:17:06 Speaker 1 And just to get to a prison. So to be in a jail is a big difference between the two. That's a whole different episode. But one of the big things that, like many people need to realize is that like when law enforcement does this kind of investigation, they typically outsource their investigation of different things, like blockchain analysis, for example, to private companies. 00:25:17:06 - 00:25:59:04 Speaker 1 And in turn, these companies try to analyze things like the Bitcoin blockchain to identify different individuals or groups that are involved in various transactions that were connected. At some point, it's like trying to look at a spider web and find all the intersections that's basically what they do with software. Now, these companies typically have developed some kind of proprietary software that analyzes all this data and underlying each Bitcoin transactions, a bunch of different data, and it looks at that, that kind of stuff, I think you have to remember is like when you do a transaction in Bitcoin is kept forever in the blockchain, it never goes away. 00:26:00:16 - 00:26:48:16 Speaker 1 So then what they'll do is they'll group all of the related blockchain transactions and they'll go to a cluster that they go out a cluster, and it's based on that analysis. And typically the methods that these blockchain analysis companies employ have been independently validated by a reputable computer scientist or someone in their field who has credibility, and they can show that these clustering techniques thereby provide accurate results and through many different investigations and prosecutions, law enforcement, much of the time has been able to also corroborate the accuracy of information provided by these third party services and vendors. 00:26:49:12 - 00:27:20:22 Speaker 1 So in the case of these idiots, the third party company identified a group of 31 different Bitcoin addresses, including an address that received payments from one of the undercovers orders. Like one of those, there's different transactions, the seven different transactions that I was telling you about earlier, this was that order that the Feds placed the control by. So this Bitcoin wallet, which we'll call wallet one, was used for the majority of the transactions. 00:27:21:16 - 00:27:50:19 Speaker 1 Then this first wallet send coins to a separate address located on it as a different wallet, which we'll call wallet two. Don't worry, we're not going to get overly complicated and nerd it out. When the FBI reviewed Wallet two, they identified 11 different transactions in which the wallet sent bitcoins to 11 Bitcoin addresses that were directly associated with a specific cryptocurrency exchange. 00:27:51:09 - 00:28:23:06 Speaker 1 And for those of you like, there are now basically a cryptocurrency exchanges are secure most of the time. Online platforms for buying, selling, transferring, storing cryptocurrency. I advise people never store it online. I like cold wallets much better. Exists the side issue, of course. The feds got records from the cryptocurrency exchange which indicated that all of the 11 addresses were associated with one account. 00:28:23:06 - 00:28:52:22 Speaker 1 Can you guess whose it was? Richard Schaffner Yeah, this moron had his billing address with a cryptocurrency exchange, and the same property was listed that the feds had been surveilling as the address on there. Don't worry, it gets better. Like take it. To add insult to injury, his co-defendants had used the exact same cryptocurrency exchange. These idiots chose an exchange that participated in what's known as KYC. 00:28:52:22 - 00:29:25:04 Speaker 1 And for those of you who don't know, KYC is shorthand for know your customer. And it's just a basically like a policy that's meant to curb money laundering. And a lot of cryptocurrency exchanges require you to photograph yourself holding your government issued ID and other information like you may require your ID separately may require you to write something down and take a picture of it with your ID or all this kind of nonsense supposed to quote, curb or slow down money laundering. 00:29:25:04 - 00:29:46:00 Speaker 1 But in reality it doesn't stop money laundering because there are many ways to get around it. But that's a topic for another day. There's a ton of exchanges that don't even use KYC that you can readily access, but really at the end of the day, it's just a way for the federal government to know what you're doing and if you're using crypto and how you're using it. 00:29:46:05 - 00:30:21:18 Speaker 1 So anyways, as far as obligate, definitely it's worth Rick's crypto exchange was also used by all of his co-defendants because they're absolute rocket scientists when it comes to OPSEC. These accounts had matching credit cards. Awesome, awesome guys that tied each of them together. Veronica, the third co-defendants, thought it would be a good idea to actively participate in KYC and get the highest level of validation and provided a photograph of herself or government issued I.D. and everything else they had asked. 00:30:22:14 - 00:30:54:17 Speaker 1 And I'm sure the feds were very thankful for that. So moving on to more ridiculous Ali, foolish and damning evidence that Rick provided the government, unbeknownst to him due to his OPSEC ignorance, was phone calls. And one thing to keep in mind is that if you're having a phone call with someone who's incarcerated, regardless of whether it's county jail, state prison, federal prison, a vast majority of the time, their phone call is recorded. 00:30:55:17 - 00:31:19:18 Speaker 1 Now, this isn't a guess. Like when you get the phone call, it's going to tell you that the phone call is going to be recorded. So whether or not someone actively like listens to it while you're on there like that changes, that's kind of random. But like when you're a federal inmate, there are signs next to all the phones that say that phone calls are recorded and actively monitored. 00:31:20:06 - 00:31:56:05 Speaker 1 So phone calls from federal facilities are almost always recorded. Both the person calling and the person receiving the call, like I said, are made aware of this fact when the phone call goes through. So it's horrible opsec to assume that like you're shitty 10th grade code will fool law enforcement when talking about crime. This is very true when you're talking about crime with someone that's in federal prison and the phone calls being recorded and it's actively monitored by federal agents. 00:31:57:05 - 00:32:34:18 Speaker 1 So this is kind of the level of Idiocracy that we're talking about here. So between January 2022 and July 22, there were over 500 phone calls between Rick and a guy named Christopher Fleet. Okay. Now, Christopher Farley was an inmate who is incarcerated at FCI Sheridan, and FCI Sheridan is a federal prison That's in Oregon. During that time, seven different telephone conversations occurred before and after the FBI had placed their control buys into Rick Stark and market vendor business. 00:32:34:23 - 00:33:17:20 Speaker 1 And Rick acknowledged his involvement in the darknet as a vendor on the phone and did so through his code on numerous occasions where he ever so cleverly referred to his business as a quote unquote t shirt and clothing business. So on my YouTube channel, I roast a lot of law enforcement agencies, especially federal ones, for how stupid they're That said, at the end of the day, when you're dumb enough to believe that calling your drug business a clothing business is enough to cover your tracks, you in turn end up making the feds look smart. 00:33:17:20 - 00:33:57:00 Speaker 1 And that says a lot. So, for example, on January 3rd of 2022, when Rick and Flea were discussing the clothing business, Rick stated that he was busy and had 25 packages he had to send out. On January six, Rick complained to Flea on the prison phone call that customers had been missing several orders. Rick said that he was writing to several different people to tell them to resubmit their orders fully while in federal prison suggested that Rick go on vacation status or mode on his Darknet accounts, which is it's exactly what it sounds like. 00:33:57:04 - 00:34:22:05 Speaker 1 You can set a mode like like almost like on Facebook, setting yourself to a way or whatever. It's a status that you can put up where you don't take orders and you're not retiring, but you're not taking orders right then either. As if this all wasn't bad enough. Like Rick actively complained on these prison calls to flee, that Veronica was lazy and that quote unquote good help was hard to find. 00:34:23:09 - 00:35:10:01 Speaker 1 He complained that they had been getting negative reviews on various markets since letting Veronica assume the role of leader. Some of the more brilliant moves between Veronica and Rick involved things like sending text messages back and forth on multiple phone messages that utilize absolutely no encryption like guys Signal is free, download it, use it all text emails, phone calls along with any other form of electronic communication ever monitored and saved by various three letter federal agencies for decades now, encryption is literally one of the only sticks that you really have in the fight for privacy. 00:35:11:04 - 00:35:53:20 Speaker 1 Federal agents had noted at least six different messages where they talked about things like quote unquote, nose powder, which of course you'll never guess what that is because the code is so incredibly elaborate. They talked about printing out more labels. They discussed when one person forgot a bunch of orders on Incognito market or when they were out of black bags and that they needed to save money, all the while adding more and more nails for the feds to pound into their metaphorical coffins, all due to their complete ignorance regarding OPSEC and infosec. 00:35:54:19 - 00:36:22:09 Speaker 1 So on May 4th, 2022, Veronica sent Rick a photo of a Walmart receipt to show proof of several mailing products that she had purchased along with the text that read Can you send me $20 for the packaging? Of course. Using this during the investigation, law enforcement went to the Walmart and got the debit card that was associated with the order. 00:36:22:19 - 00:37:05:15 Speaker 1 The debit card, big shock was owned by none other than Veronica because why use cash throughout this story, we've mainly highlighted how idiotic Rick was and his negligent OPSEC position and InfoSec stances. We've highlighted that there was absolutely no planning and seems like to account for any of these kind of things. There was no policy on treating information or dealing with anything like that leading to ridiculous security breaches that allowed them and their information to get repeatedly taken by feds. 00:37:05:22 - 00:37:27:18 Speaker 1 So on August 8th, Veronica had ordered four inch by six inch direct thermal shipping labels from Amazon, even though she didn't own any based or clothing store or any store, she thought it would be wise to order direct print thermal shipping labels from Amazon in her name with her credit card, which seems to be a favorite of Veronica. 00:37:28:04 - 00:37:59:18 Speaker 1 The feds, in turn looked at Rick's account and saw the Rick. It ordered the same labels. Rick had ordered a hard ray label holder for the Rolls and fan fold labels for a four by six stand. So let's think about this for a minute. How many people listening, how many people right now who have bought are a roll holder because they print out thermal labels by the hundreds? 00:37:59:18 - 00:38:25:16 Speaker 1 It's like when you go to your friend's house, how many of them have a stand built specifically to hold 200 thermal shipping labels at a time that are fed by a rule? Hey, I'm willing to bet not a lot of you have friends like this. But the fact of the matter is that no one does unless that person owns an eBay store or participates in some other type of commerce or e-commerce. 00:38:26:05 - 00:38:51:08 Speaker 1 Much of the time when a person does have these kinds of things and participates in legitimate commerce like an eBay store, everyone knows it much of the time. They were so lazy that they would just stick these parcels that they were mailing into these USPS blue collections boxes. But the one that Veronica favored was less than a half a mile away from our home. 00:38:52:04 - 00:39:18:13 Speaker 1 When the feds looked at various surveillance cameras from that area, they saw a blue Mini cooper that resembled the exact one that she drove. I mean, come on. Like when you're this lazy, it's just you make it so easy for federal law enforcement. Like these people are basically treating the feds like they're local law enforcement, something to them, like the town garbage. 00:39:18:15 - 00:39:41:13 Speaker 1 I mean, all these details are easily viewable yourself to the inside of Daniel McCoy's, who's the the the Fed who wrote this affidavit that he submitted in support of the criminal complaint and the arrest warrant against Veronica Dedmon. So as of right now, no sentencing has happened for which he pled guilty right off the bat, which is stupid. 00:39:41:14 - 00:40:02:13 Speaker 1 I mean, he should have waited out. You could have tried to negotiate for a lower ends, but he faces a mandatory minimum of five years, which means you already pled guilty. She's going to get found guilty. So the minimum amount of time this idiot's going to get is five years, because he didn't try to negotiate or have anything thrown out or even literally no fight whatsoever. 00:40:02:13 - 00:40:26:22 Speaker 1 He's been right over and and took it and is looking at a maximum of 40 years with a maximum fine of $5 million. And I mean, in his plea agreement, it was crazy like in his plea agreement, the United States like rakes him over the coals. They even make him agree to a credit at Cook. And things are definitely not looking good for red shirt. 00:40:26:22 - 00:40:57:18 Speaker 1 Now, Rick, what's interesting is throughout like Rich's paperwork, I wasn't able to find a mention of a rat or an informant or anything like that. I really nothing that said anything like that. But when you read Veronica's paperwork, they talk about someone identifying her car and conversations that she's had. And now, like in prison, you need black and white documentation to have the ability to call someone out as a rat. 00:40:57:18 - 00:41:23:19 Speaker 1 More or less. It's not a concrete rule, but it's pretty common in a lot of different prisons and jails. Anyway, if you don't have this and you just call someone random Iraq, you think that they're at, they could have fatal consequences for you. I mean, your people, wherever you're with homeboys or whatever, might end up killing you. I mean, stabbed to death over it might be A civil B or whatever. 00:41:23:21 - 00:41:51:11 Speaker 1 Like there's a variety of things that could happen. So for this reason, by default, I'm very reluctant to call anyone in the case of RAD, but I do find it odd that they talk so much about a confidential informant in Veronica's case, as in someone telling on her. But they don't enriches KEYES So what do you think? Is this like the worst OPSEC that you've heard of regarding a Darknet vendor? 00:41:51:21 - 00:42:20:09 Speaker 1 Have you heard of this case? So one thing I am going to say is if the vendor don't tell me or put in the comments that you knew him or her on my YouTube channel, if you do, I will remove your comment. Like let me know where you think. For those of you who are listening in and be listening on Spotify or any of the other dozen places that distribute this podcast, I have a YouTube channel called Doing Fed Time. 00:42:20:09 - 00:42:43:17 Speaker 1 I discuss different issues related to federal prisons and Darknet and stuff like that. So if you want to join our discussion, come on over to that channel and more than happy to respond. I respond back to most people who end up comment and commenting. But in the meantime, stay safe, secure and free. And I will see you guys in the next one.