Last week a French citizen in a US court pleaded guilty to that sold drugs on the darknet. 36-year-old French Gal Vallerius was arrested in September last year in the Atlanta airport where he had arrived to participate in the “world championship of beards and moustaches” in Austin, Texas. This was reported by the 14 June edition of Bleeping Computer.
The police managed to unmask the perpetrator, tracing the translations of his bitcoins in the blockchain. According to the investigators, Wallerius, speaking on the darknet under the name OxyMonster established in the marketplace Dream Market “box tip” (“tip jar”). With its help, the customers paid Valeriusa. Unlike most sellers on Dream Market, OxyMonster set up a payment system so that his “tips” are not processed domestic payment systems of the store who conduct transactions through the mixer-anonymizer. Instead, funds are directly received in bitcoin wallets.
The police found that 15 of 17 coming from the “box” transactions are left in the wallets of Vallerius on LocalBitcoins. Because of this, they managed to establish the identity OxyMonster. They also found the similarity of the author’s style and OxyMonster Gal Vallerius on Twitter and Instagram.
In September, when Vallerius flew to the United States to participate in the championship, the police examined his laptop and made sure that we are talking about one person. In computer Wallerius also found encryption PGP key, with which he signed the message, his credentials on the website Dream Market, and addresses of bitcoin wallets associated with his account on the site. In sum, the wallets contained a bitcoin for $500 000.
According to the indictment, OxyMonster sold on the site ritalin, cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone, fentanyl and LSD.
On set of charges to Wallerius was threatened with life imprisonment, and he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to laundering of proceeds of crime, possession of prohibited and controlled goods and substances and trade (he was the administrator and chief moderator of the Dream Market and oversaw the manufacturing a wide range of prohibited goods, including drugs, weapons, forged documents, stolen data, etc.). The guilty plea allowed him to reduce the life sentence to 20 years imprisonment.
The investigation found that Valerius also used nick VanDeevp and engaged in trade on the darknet sites such as Evolution, Valhalla, TradRoute, Hansa Market and AlphaBay. AlphaBay and Hansa were closed in July 2017, however, Dream Market continues to function to this day. According to some estimates, is the largest darknet marketplace.
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