
He came to the U.S. for a beard competition. Law enforcement was waiting - nradov
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/10/05/he-came-to-the-u-s-for-a-beard-competition-law-enforcement-was-waiting/
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gamechangr
paywall

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earenndil
Mirror:

He was in the country because of his beard.

It was hard to miss, a showstopper, holy-man thick and dropping to his belly
button. When Gal Vallerius stepped off a plane from France last month in
Atlanta, he was on his way to the 2017 World Beard and Moustache Championships
in Austin. It was his first trip to the United States.

But the 38-year-old Frenchman did not make it. Federal authorities were
waiting on the ground at the airport, ready to pounce on the accused dark Web
drug dealer they knew as “OxyMonster.”

According to court documents filed this week, Vallerius was taken into custody
in late August. His laptop was searched, yielding a Tor browser to access the
dark Web and $500,000 worth of bitcoin. And there were other clues linking
Vallerius to the “OxyMonster” accounts on Dream Market, a Pirate Bay-style
online black market.

After an initial appearance in a Georgia federal court, the accused drug
trafficker was transferred to Miami, where he faces a charge of conspiracy to
distribute controlled substances. The arrest comes follows a wave of similar
prosecutions from the U.S. Department of Justice, where Attorney General Jeff
Sessions has made dark Web crime a high priority.

Vallerius is not accused of merely using dark websites to traffic drugs.
According to an affidavit filed by an Drug Enforcement Administration agent,
Vallerius also acted as “an Administrator, Senior Moderator, and Vendor on
Dream Market, playing a critical role in supporting daily illicit transactions
between buyers and vendors.”

The court affidavit states investigators had been poking around Dream Market
since early 2016. Earlier this year, investigators noted a list of
administrators and moderators on a Dream Market forum. “OxyMonster” was listed
as a senior moderator.

Further searches on the account showed “OxyMonster” was selling OxyContin and
Ritalin on the site, with “60 prior sales and five star reviews from buyer,”
the records note. “In addition, his profile stated that he ships from France
to anywhere in Europe.” Gal Vallerius. (via New York Daily News video)

It was not difficult for investigators to discover “OxyMonster’s” identity.
The account featured a digital “tip jar” for bitcoins. Agents then “conducted
analysis of the incoming and outgoing transactions from that bitcoin address
and learned that 15 out of 17 outgoing transactions from the ‘OxyMonster’ tip
jar went to multiple wallets controlled by French national” Gal Vallerius.

Armed with the name, investigators found Instagram and Twitter accounts for
Vallerius. They compared the writing style from the social media accounts with
“OxyMonster’s” prose on Dream Market. “Agents discovered many similarities in
the use of words and punctuation” including “the word ‘cheers;’ double
exclamation marks; frequent use of quotation marks; and intermittent French
posts,” the affidavit states.

The documents with the court, however, do not indicate whether investigators
actually purchased drugs from the account. The affidavit, however, notes that
law enforcement knew Vallerius was coming to the United States for the beard
competition. They were waiting.

Court records indicate the defendant has yet to make an appearance in Miami.
According to the Miami Herald, Vallerius is among a half-dozen other deep Web
prosecutions in the South Florida court in the past year.

