FBI Says Dark Market Sting Netted 56 Arrests 130
narramissic writes "A two-year undercover FBI sting operation targeting online 'carder' forums hosted on the DarkMarket.ws Web site has netted 56 arrests and prevented about $70 million in fraud losses, the FBI said Thursday. DarkMarket.ws was widely used by online scammers to buy and sell stolen credit card numbers, other financial information, and even the devices used to make fake banking cards. Before it was shut down earlier this month, the Web site had registered more than 2,500 members. Although Dark Market was thought to have been administered by a criminal going by the name Master Splyntr, German Public Radio reported on Monday that the FBI had been running a sting operation on the site since late 2006, and that Master Splyntr was actually an FBI agent named J. Keith Mularski." Of course, they say it in German; non-German speakers may want to consult the Babelfish.
Re:agent identities (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:only 56 arrests? (Score:1, Insightful)
So, when we make only one arrest with Osama been Laughin', are you going to complain yet again?
There's no "only". Each person arrested could have done millions of dollars of damage to countless people's lives and there's always that one particularly talented individual in the crowd that could do far worse. So, one or a hundred, I'm not complaining. Get those leeches off the street.
Re:only 56 arrests? (Score:4, Insightful)
Err, you actually think someone is looking for bin laden?
Yes. If you think otherwise, then you really need to loosen the tinfoil.
This is great news but... (Score:5, Insightful)
The German report confirm rumors that have swirled around DarkMarket since late 2006, when uber-hacker Max Ray Butler cracked the site's server and announced to the underground that he'd caught Master Splynter logging in from the NCFTA's office on the banks of the Monongahela River.
In other words they were completely outed, although unsuccessfully, prior to the German report. They were actually hacked and exposed two years ago. That's pretty bad operations security. Never run/manage your sting site from where you really are.. well at least if that plays ties back directly to law enforcement. That's kind of like if a DEA agent showed up to a drug buy and parked his marked police car behind the dumpster nearby. ::face palm::
Re:The question. (Score:4, Insightful)
Thieves, politicians, corporate executives, you name it...
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of those "users" were probably spambots, if it's anything like the forums I maintain. :P
As for the entrapment angle, this one's easy. The FBI guy sets up the site, drops a few whispers around the Tubes, and gets people to show up. Maybe the FBI has some controlled info to spread around so that people get interested, but they can turn those accounts off quickly enough that it doesn't spend a lot of taxpayer money.
After a while, people start exchanging their own stolen credit card info for cash using the site as an intermediary. They discuss their own criminal exploits, and they unwittingly provide the information needed to trace themselves to their physical location, because they now trust the site and don't bother using a proxy for anonymity. The FBI guy only has to stay involved in a general way, making his presence felt as the site's maintainer, and everyone else will continue willingly providing evidence against themselves without the direct prodding of the FBI guy.
And that's not entrapment.
Re:agent identities (Score:4, Insightful)
* woosh *
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_is_babby_formed_How_girl_get_pragnent [answers.com]
What the hell? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm I seeing things or did Slashdot just publish the full name of an undercover FBI Agent? Even if its out somewhere else, it's pretty low to post it on a site that gets 100x the traffic of the source.
D
Re:agent identities (Score:3, Insightful)
lol.
You really need to brush up on what entrapment is.
They where NOT trying to entrap you. Selling you narcotics and then arresting you for owning them is NOT entrapment.
Your story is suspect anyway. Any cop worth (his / her) salts isn't going to be telling you that you are a good boy afterwards for not taking the bait.
Looking up IP space for the police? LOL. Heard of AOL dialup?
This post stinks of bullshit. I'm removing my shoes and walking on. snopes couldn't even stand for this one.
--Toll_Free
Re:agent identities (Score:3, Insightful)
Selling you narcotics and then arresting you for owning them is NOT entrapment.
Then what, pray tell, IS? Sure looks like entrapment to me, and if I wind up on a jury where some poor slob got busted for buying dope from a cop, I'll hold out for a "not guilty" verdict. Actually since I don't believe the feds have the constitutional authority to outlaw drugs (they needed a constitutional amendment to outlaw alcohol, and I see no difference between it and any other drug) if I'm on the jury on a drug case, he or she will get off.
If a cop pretends to be a whore and walks up and says "suck your dick for twenty dollars?" that's entrapment. If she just LOOKS like a hooker and walks the streets like a whore (actually any Secret Police is a whore in my book) and you offer HER twenty bucks to suck your dick, first you're paying too much and second it's NOT entrapment.
Sitting outside a dope house and busting you as you come out isn't, as I found out when I drove two friends to a house in the ghetto to meet a slumlord who needed slums cleaned after evicting his impoverished tenents.
It and another episode of the cops abusing my Constitutional rights is journaled here [slashdot.org].