

Ask HN: How did delivery of drugs on Silk Road work? - sixQuarks

Were the people selling&#x2F;buying drugs on Silk Road top-level drug merchants?  Or were they suburban kids?<p>I understand that the service kept everyone anonymous, but there&#x27;s still the problem of delivery.  How did the actual delivery of drugs work?  And doesn&#x27;t the government have ways to detect drugs in the mail?
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runjake
_> Were the people selling/buying drugs on Silk Road top-level drug
merchants?_

This is unknown, but my assumption after looking at transaction records is
yes.

 _> Or were they suburban kids?_

I'm not even sure what "suburban kids" means. I think there's a wider
demographic of low end product buyers, than what you describe, but yes.

 _> How did the actual delivery of drugs work?_

From public sources, it appears the dealer would typically use prepaid
shipping and drop it into a public postal box for delivery.

 _> And doesn't the government have ways to detect drugs in the mail?_

Yes, and it seems like criminals are always one step ahead. I know that this
summer, just prior to DPR's arrest that dealers were using some scheme that
involved multiple layers of sealed mylar to counter the gov't's detection
techniques. Sometimes these bags were stashed inside a figurine or some other
object, and sometimes they were slipped inside the pages of a magazine.

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throwawaykid
Throwaway time!

Though I myself have never purchased anything from Silk Road, I knew a group
of (rich, suburban) kids who purchased drugs (and other stuff, like fake IDs)
off of Silk Road and Black Market Reloaded, another illegal Tor marketplace.
From what I understand shipments were hidden, and very hard to detect. For
example, if a number of pills we're being shipped, they'd be sowed into the
lining of a purse, or hidden in the battery compartment of a cheap calculator.
That item would then be shipped like a normal item, usually through USPS.

Though the government has certain ways to detect certain drugs in the mail
(cocaine and pot are easy to detect, where as LSD or Class Two pills are
almost impossible), most of its efforts are focused on international mail and
keeping drugs from being smuggled into the country. As domestic detection was
almost unheard of (unless the police were specifically tipped off) most people
would only purchase from sellers in the US.

~~~
throwawaykid
People selling were mostly top level merchants, people buying were mostly
younger people with a lot of money but not enough connections/street cred to
buy in person

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ElongatedTowel
It is my understanding (never smoked myself nor owned any ficus that lived for
more than a week) that growing quality plants is actually a very complicated
process which takes up a lot of space, requires adequate lighting which in
itself is hard to conceil, spacy, as well consuming a lot of power. I doubt
suburban kids could be that deep into it.

I mean, just look at what some people are doing in terms of selfbrewed beers
and stuff. That is hightech meticulously planned do it yourself machinery and
botany.

~~~
throwawaykid
1) (from what I've heard) Yes, you're correct, growing pot is very difficult

2) you'd be supposed by the dedication of some suburban stoner kids who don't
have a care in the world for anything else, but marticulously tend to their
pot plants.

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NicoJuicy
Actually, everyone was responsable for their own shipment. It was just through
mail and they even caught one guy who had written his own address on the
reply-package ;-)

It was the anonimity on the web that made it a big deal, not the shipment.
That was easy :)

