June 15, 2018

Bitcoin Transactions Help Police Track Down Dark Web Drug Dealer

Open Positions at CCN: Full Time and Part Time Journalists Wanted.

A French national has pleaded guilty to selling narcotics on the dark web after police were able to trace his criminal activities through his bitcoin accounts. Police arrested 36-year-old Gal Vallerius in September at the Atlanta airport in the US while traveling to attend a beard and mustache competition, according to Bleeping Computer.

Investigators said Vallerius, who used the name OxyMonster on the Dark Web, established a “tip jar” on the Dream Market marketplace. He did not use the marketplace’s internal payment systems that process transactions via a transaction anonymizer for collecting his tips.

Police Trace bitcoin Activity

Police learned that 15 of 17 outgoing transactions from the tip jar went to bitcoin wallets that Vallerius kept on LocalBitcoins. This allowed them to determine he was OxyMonster. They also found similarities between Vallerius’ and OxyMonster’s writing styles on Twitter and Instagram.

U.S. border agents seized Vallerius’ laptop when he visited the US in the fall and were able to confirm from his laptop that he was OxyMonster. Authorities also found other evidence on the laptop including a PGP encryption key he used to sign messages, Dream Market login credentials, and bitcoin wallets with addresses connected to OxyMonster vendor accounts.

The criminal complaint identified OxyMonster as someone who sold cocaine, fentanyl, LSD, oxycodone and Methamphetamine.

Also read: The war on online drugs will finally be won in 2340

Vallerius Pleads Guilty

Vallerius admitted selling oxycodone and Ritalin on the Dream Market and signed a guilty plea after trying for nine months to escape a lifetime prison sentence. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder money and to possess with intent to distribute illicit goods and controlled substances. He faces a possible 20 years in prison, but not a lifetime sentence.

According to investigators, Vallerius also used the name VanDeevp and had accounts on other marketplaces such as Evolution, Valhalla, TradRoute, Hansa Market and AlphaBay.

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Published at Fri, 15 Jun 2018 22:52:17 +0000

bitcoin Crime

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April 10, 2017

Rent Control Makes for Good Politics and Bad Economics

mises.org / Gary Galles / April 10, 2017

One needn’t read very much about public policy before coming across some statement to the effect that “bad economics makes good politics.” This statement is clearly untrue when good politics is defined as furthering mutually beneficial arrangements, as good economics is central to that task. But the statement is often true when good politics is defined as attracting 50%-plus-one votes on some issue or candidate, which is a much different standard, leaving plenty of room for government-imposed harms to be imposed on citizens.

Few issues reflect this divergence between “good” politics and bad economics more clearly than rent control. One of the most universally accepted propositions among economists is that rent control produces a host of adverse social consequences with its large involuntary redistribution of wealth and suppression of market prices as communicators of information and incentives. Despite that, it has been adopted as policy in many places and times — and now is a good time to revisit these issues, as efforts are currently underway in several states (including California, Oregon, Washington, and Illinois) to repeal existing statewide restrictions on rent control.

How Rent Control Destroys Value

Rent control takes a large portion of the value of residential properties from landlords. It does so by removing owners’ rights to accept offers willingly made by potential renters. And the value of the rights involved are large. For example, after Toronto imposed rent control in 1975, affected building values fell by 40% over five years, and a decade ago, such losses were estimated at $120 million annually in Santa Monica. A law like rent control, which can take half or more of each apartment’s value from the landlord, harms them just as much taking away half of their apartments, even though the latter is recognized as theft. Those stripped property values are given to current tenants, whose resulting bonanzas are shown by the fact that those under strict rent control almost never leave.

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