Any precedent for warrants for customers on vendor list?

[marsupial]

We’ve never had this happen for gear, but what about things like cocaine and fentanyl. If a dealer hands over all their clientele info, LE could use that theoretically, but I still don’t think that that would be enough for a warrant. The standard seems to be in harsher states that if contraband is intercepted in a pack thats addressed to you, then that’s fair game for a search warrant for your house, but a list with names and numbers that anyone could just make up or obtain through phishing (I assure you, if you have ever bought from Amazon, hundreds of Indian and Nigerian scammers know exactly where you live) couldn’t provide much evidence on its own.

It could draw more attention to you from LE, but they can only stakeout with their binoculars in the bushes for so long while other crimes happen lol

 

[FatPharms]

absolutely. the feds take over darknet markets all the time, mirror the server, keep the sites up and running for months, log all the buyers, roll up the biggest buyers that they can reach jurisdictionally themselves, turn the small fish over to the local jurisdiction.

 

[marsupial]

absolutely. the feds take over darknet markets all the time, mirror the server, keep the sites up and running for months, log all the buyers, roll up the biggest buyers that they can reach jurisdictionally themselves, turn the small fish over to the local jurisdiction.

So the solution then is to buy less and use fewer drugs than the guy next to you on the vendor list

 

[S.B.C]

it's happened for gear just don't ask me to prove it I'm relying on my failing memory.

 

[malfeasance]

I have never heard of this happening for steroid shipments (which is not the same as saying it has never happened). I mean, yeah, they arrest buyers if they catch it coming through the mail, but I have never heard of them using the vendor's electronic information to try to make cases against customers.

Probably because they have hundreds of customers and there just are not resources available to pursue all of them.

BUT, that does not mean it will not happen starting tomorrow or the next day.

 

[marsupial]

I have never heard of this happening for steroid shipments (which is not the same as saying it has never happened). I mean, yeah, they arrest buyers if they catch it coming through the mail, but I have never heard of them using the vendor's electronic information to try to make cases against customers.

Probably because they have hundreds of customers and there just are not resources available to pursue all of them.

BUT, that does not mean it will not happen starting tomorrow or the next day.

Read my OP. Anyone can easily phish your living information and list it on their “customer list”

 

[narta]

You can't pursue a warrant based on a name and address on a list. You need probable cause and that means some kind of hard evidence aka shipment seized etc.

But if that involves hard drugs in quantities that are not for personal use, I personally wish they would do it.

 

[demon]

You can't pursue a warrant based on a name and address on a list. You need probable cause and that means some kind of hard evidence aka shipment seized etc.

But if that involves hard drugs in quantities that are not for personal use, I personally wish they would do it.

.....

 

[MA11]

The "darknet markets" Alphabay and Hansa were used to obtain thousands of buyers information. They took control of both markets and once they shut down alphabay they watched the users move over to Hansa, which was already under police control.

Quote wiki:
"AlphaBay was then shut down on July 4, and as expected a flood of users came to Hansa, until its shutdown on July 19/20. During this time, the police allowed the Hansa userbase (then growing from 1000 to 8000 vendors per day[3]) to make 27000 illegal transactions in order to collect evidence for future prosecution of users. Local cybercrime prosecutor Martijn Egberts claimed to have obtained around 10,000 addresses of Hansa buyers outside of the Netherlands."

I wonder what happened to all these people. I doubt the occasional weed buyer faced any consequences.

 

[narta]

.....

What? You have a problem with authorities pursuing warrants for hard drugs?

 

[demon]

What? You have a problem with authorities pursuing warrants for hard drugs?

No, I'm all for it. I replied to your response and decided to delete it, I couldn't leave it blank so added ...

 

[FatPharms]

So the solution then is to buy less and use fewer drugs than the guy next to you on the vendor list

low profile +
antagonize no-one +
uninteresting compounds and quantities +
strictly compartmentalize rl/hobby identities and activities +
opsec on point
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
= not the low hanging fruit

 

[Millard]

We’ve never had this happen for gear, but what about things like cocaine and fentanyl. If a dealer hands over all their clientele info, LE could use that theoretically, but I still don’t think that that would be enough for a warrant. The standard seems to be in harsher states that if contraband is intercepted in a pack thats addressed to you, then that’s fair game for a search warrant for your house, but a list with names and numbers that anyone could just make up or obtain through phishing (I assure you, if you have ever bought from Amazon, hundreds of Indian and Nigerian scammers know exactly where you live) couldn’t provide much evidence on its own.

It could draw more attention to you from LE, but they can only stakeout with their binoculars in the bushes for so long while other crimes happen lol

I've seen prosecutors/investigators threaten to go after customers but I never followed up to see if they actually did. I would tend to doubt it in most cases.

 

[Millard]

There was this case in Texas called Operation Juicy Phruit which resulted in at least 73 arrests (mostly customers from what I could tell in one of the worst cases of overreach that I've seen):

Bodybuilders, Personal Trainers and Gym Owner Arrested in Texas Steroid Bust

Operation Farmacia de Juicy Phruit is the code name for the major steroid bust in Houston led by the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Department involving the

thinksteroids.com

Unfortunately, most of them pleaded guilty. One notable exception was Lee Thompson, he had the financial resources to fight the feds and did so successful in one of the rare cases where an individual fights the feds and wins with an acquittal.

 

[marsupial]

There was this case in Texas called Operation Juicy Phruit which resulted in at least 73 arrests (mostly customers from what I could tell in one of the worst cases of overreach that I've seen):

Bodybuilders, Personal Trainers and Gym Owner Arrested in Texas Steroid Bust

Operation Farmacia de Juicy Phruit is the code name for the major steroid bust in Houston led by the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Department involving the

thinksteroids.com

Unfortunately, most of them pleaded guilty. One notable exception was Lee Thompson, he had the financial resources to fight the feds and did so successful in one of the rare cases where an individual fights the feds and wins with an acquittal.

Hmm I’d like to know how they got warrants or were able to search all these people for possession. If there’s heat at your gym I would think people would want to just clean house…but then again it’s hard to do that for 6 months…unless you have a good place to hide all the shit

Also goes to show the risk of in person sources

 

[malfeasance]

There was this case in Texas called Operation Juicy Phruit which resulted in at least 73 arrests (mostly customers from what I could tell in one of the worst cases of overreach that I've seen):

Bodybuilders, Personal Trainers and Gym Owner Arrested in Texas Steroid Bust

Operation Farmacia de Juicy Phruit is the code name for the major steroid bust in Houston led by the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Department involving the

thinksteroids.com

Unfortunately, most of them pleaded guilty. One notable exception was Lee Thompson, he had the financial resources to fight the feds and did so successful in one of the rare cases where an individual fights the feds and wins with an acquittal.

"Yeah, they want to focus on the hard drugs. Nobody cares about steroids."

Except that the largest law enforcement narcotics operation ever in the history of Fort Bend County was a steroid operation. Not meth. Not cocaine. Steroids.

What folks do not realize is that law enforcement views steroids as hard drugs, and in many states the law declares them so. After all, they are schedule III, the same schedule as ketamine.

In the states where possession of even one 5mg tablet of anavar is a felony, if you think that law enforcement is not interested when the USPS delivers them a felony case all gift wrapped and ready to go - do you think they just want to ignore that because it is not a high priority? Ot is time to wake up.

The linked story is a decade and a half old now. Interception methods by law enforcement have gotten better, and law enforcement has more resources than back then.

 

[malfeasance]

Tim Johnson, the acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, told the press that the Houston area communities are “safer places today” now that individuals using steroids to improve their physical appearance have been arrested. DEA Special Agent Zoran Yankovich told reporters that the dangers of steroid use are not always obvious asserting that steroids lead to “broken families, broken homes and people who are hurt [by steroids] that we never know about.”

***

They truly believe that they are not only the good guys, but that they are helping you by arresting you.

They sleep well at night in the smug satisfaction of all the help they provided to you by arresting you before it is too late.

 

[malfeasance]

At least three unidentified competitive bodybuilders obtained prescriptions for all of the steroids and ancillary medications that they used through face-to-face visits with Tulsa-area physician(s). Last year, IFBB Pro Guy Ducasse reportedly had prescriptions for personal quantities of pharmaceutical steroids and other medications when Tulsa Police searched his home. Ducasse was critical of news accounts portraying him as a main distributor of anabolic steroids and other illegal performance drugs in Tulsa and omitting the fact that he had prescriptions for all medications seized from his home.

Tulsa Police were not deterred by physician-prescribed anabolic steroids. When the bodybuilders ended up having prescriptions for the pharmaceutical steroids, police decided to pursue the doctor(s) who prescribed them. Dr. Gary Robert Lee, a family and sports medicine physician at Gilcrease Medical Center, prescribed stanozolol (Winstrol) and nandrolone (Deca Durabolin) for the “off-label” purpose of treating and assisting recovery from injuries to three bodybuilders. Tulsa County Assistant District Attorney Tony Evans filed felony anabolic steroid distribution charges against Dr. Lee this week (“Tulsa doctor charged over steroid prescriptions,” April 10).

Arrest Warrants Issued for Several Oklahoma Bodybuilders - MESO-Rx

Oklahoma law enforcement have sent a clear message that they are targeting competitive bodybuilders who use anabolic steroids by issuing 10 arrest

thinksteroids.com

 

[malfeasance]

Unfortunately, most of them pleaded guilty. One notable exception was Lee Thompson, he had the financial resources to fight the feds and did so successful in one of the rare cases where an individual fights the feds and wins with an acquittal.

So he was found not guilty? I was looking for the outcome among the news links in that article. Do you know what his defense was?

Notable here is that he was not charged with possession for personal use, but as a part of the conspiracy to distribute.

So I guess the result of all of the personal possession charges was guilty pleas all around.

 

[malfeasance]

73 arrests - had they all filed speedy trial demands and refused to plea bargain, they could have brought Fort Bend County's system to its knees, but nobody thinks like that.