It's not the buying of drugs online that puzzles me. Seems to beat the alternative of having to deal with potentially hazardous interactions with drug dealers on the street.
What escapes me is how they solve the problem of having to provide a shipping address at some point. That seems like the real weak point to me, as a buyer. (Yes, I know, PO boxes exist, but to my knowledge, renting one usually requires some form of ID).
Anyone knows how the actual customers solve this dilemma? Hoping they stay below the threshold for being targeted by LE?
What escapes me is how they solve the problem of having to provide a shipping address at some point. That seems like the real weak point to me, as a buyer. (Yes, I know, PO boxes exist, but to my knowledge, renting one usually requires some form of ID).
Anyone knows how the actual customers solve this dilemma? Hoping they stay below the threshold for being targeted by LE?
Almost all of the vendors on SR demanded PGP so "only" they are in property of your adress and not SR .
But wasn't the point of the last SR bust at least that a number of the largest marketplace vendors were found out as well? Including their customer data, one would assume?
AFAIK they used "traditional" methods to investigate them. The FBI/police ordered multiple packages for themselves and looked at the origin of the stamps that were used on that package; after that they surveil all the post offices in that area for over e.g. 1-2 weeks, lookin at CCTV and so on. Good vendors(that wanted to be safe) changed their postbox frequently.
Of course you canīt prevent that a vendor gives the police his customer adresses(if he hasnīt deleted them), but they didnīt catch more than 2-3 vendors out of hundreds.
After all itīs a black market, not 100% safe

But in my opinion itīs far more risky to get caught in real life. And as someone else stated in most countries the police canīt harm you if they canīt proove that you didnīt order the package for yourself.
Thatīs what i heard at least
