The Northern California Illicit Digital Economy Task Force (NCIDETF) has reportedly arrested an Empire Market vendor bearing pseudonym “TheCommission”. The vendor is considered to be a “top-level” vendor involved in the sales of cocaine, heroin, morphine and other controlled substances on the same darknet market.
NCIDETF has added the pseudonym to their list of the arrested dark web vendors. The list is hosted on the official .onion service of The Northern California Illicit Digital Economy Task Force and was updated to include TheCommission, who has been an active opioid and cocaine vendor. With this addition to the list, the investigations that involved the NCIDETF has yielded arrests in at the minimum of 17 cases.
The NCIDETF Arrested Vendor List contains the pseudonyms of the following identities where “TheCommission” is the final entry and latest addition so far:
- Farmacy41
- sicknessVersion2 a/k/a 23MightyMouse23
- Houseofdank a/k/a BestBuyMeds a/k/a TrapMart
- DankStix
- BudgetBudsExpress
- CokeWave
- SafeDealsDirect
- Cannabars a/k/a thefastplug
- PhantomLabs
- Diablow a/k/a raiseappeals a/k/a RaisedByDiablow
- CaliCartel a/k/a Playground a/k/a GaminoCrimeFamily a/k/a DopeQueen
- DrFrosty
- guessguess
- largomonkey a/k/a sillycoconut
- Super_Shards
- Gemstoned
- TheCommission
However, at present, it is unclear when exactly the law enforcement officials have arrested the particular vendor. Depending on the available information, it seems as if the law enforcement officials have arrested him on either the 25th of June, 2020 or the 26th of June, 2020. One of the former customers of TheCommission has written in a post on the Dread forum that he had an order that was marked as “shipping label created on the 24th”. Just on the following day, TheCommission had allegedly advised the customer that his package will be delivered on the 26th of June, 2020. On the said date, that is on 26th June, the status of the package was changed to “seized by the law enforcement”.
As of the 28th of June, the customers are currently finalizing their orders and also rating the transactions on the Empire Market. The vendor, TheCommission, has also updated its profile twice on the 25th of June, 2020, as noted.
6/25/20 – 6:00 pm (EST): Cut off closed. All orders after this point ship tomorrow.
6/25/20: How this will work moving forward, is we will accept as many orders as possible each day, before then going on vacation mode. This will ensure all “SDD” packages get dropped the same day and overall swift processing. The store will re-open each day once the last batch has been processed. Thank you!
The last login to the vendor account into the Empire Marketplace on the 26th of June, 2020 (as per the same profile login in the market). The Law Enforcement has most likely accessed the vendor account following the arrest on the late 25th June or the 26th June 2020. It seems that the vendor might be having an issue involving Wickr on the 18th of June or the 19th of June 2020. Based on an announcement on the vendor’s profile, “The Prior Wickr Account of TheCommission was Compromised”.
In this regard, one of the Dread users has commented:
The Wickr account has been compromised as far back as the 19th at least. No response at all the 18th, then late on the 19th it was active and scamming people. Not sure if that was LE or not. The pack never sent.
Furthermore, the user has also added that the person who was controlling the Wickr account on the 19th of June, also bore access to the account on the Empire Market. According to the same customer, TheCommission had never shipped the package that he ordered on the 19th of June, 2020 and the customer revealed that he told the vendor something during their conversation that he had posted on his Empire page.
One of the other users has written that after the vendor switched to the new Wickr account, TheCommission had responded to the product questions. But responding to the above comment, another user wrote that he had faced no issues with TheCommission after he switched to his new Wickr account.
A lack of information regarding an arrested dark web vendor on the NCIDETF’s Arrested Vendor List is not unusual at all. The Northern California Illicit Digital Economy Task Force adds a name to the list, and the additional information only surfaces a couple of months later soon after the U.S. Attorney’s Office announces an indictment. An exceptional example of this is the DrFrosty Case. Already a year has passed since the publication of the DrFrosty article, and yet no additional information is available for the public.
Source: DarknetLive
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