How the feds busted a top Silk Road seller

UK authorities also announce arrest of Silk Road sellers in Devon, Manchester.

Cyrus Farivar – Oct 8, 2013 11:35 am | 109

"900 suspected tablets of Alprazolam," aka Xanax, were sent to a suspected Silk Road seller in November 2012. Credit: johnofhammond

Authorities in the state of Washington arrested two people last week in connection with drug sales on the Silk Road, a clear indication of a crackdown on dealers using the notorious site. News of their arrest first broke late Monday evening.

According to a 16-page criminal complaint (PDF) dated October 2, 2013, the two suspects, Steven Lloyd Sadler and Jenna M. White, have been charged with conspiracy to distribute heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine. Authorities believe that Sadler and White, arrested on October 2 and 3 respectively, are behind the “NOD” account on Silk Road, which was one of the “top sellers” on the site. (That account also had a thread under the Silk Road subreddit.)

From Pakistan to Seattle

The criminal complaint describes how authorities intercepted various packages from the United States Postal Service “mail stream,” using a combination of drug-sniffing dogs and parcel searches in September 2012. A postal inspector found one package that “contained similar handwriting, was of the same size, and bore the same type of postage stamp, compared to the first package that the inspector had opened without a warrant.”

Law enforcement agents did not find drugs in that second package, but they did find $3,200 in cash and a return address pointing authorities to an address at a UPS store, where one “Edward Harlow” had opened an account, as had one “Aaron Thompson.” UPS also revealed to authorities that “Thompson” had opened another box in Tukwila, Washington, another Seattle suburb.

By November 2012, the USPS intercepted another package sent from Pakistan addressed to Thompson’s Tukwila UPS box. When it was searched by customs authorities, agents found “900 suspected tablets of Alprazolam.” Alprazolam is the generic name of Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug.

The following month, a postal employee at the Riverton Heights Post Office in SeaTac, Washington, just south of Seattle, noticed that a “blond female” was purchasing stamps and dropping off packages with handwriting similar to the ones found on the previously inspected packages. That same employee noted that the blonde woman drove an Audi, and the worker wrote down the car’s license plate number. From there, it appears that it was all downhill for the suspects.

Law enforcement ran the plate for the Audi, which turned up the name of Steven Sadler and a Bellevue, Washington address for his condominium, with other records searches confirming it was his residence. Based on “surveillance by law enforcement on multiple occasions,” White appeared to also reside at the Bellevue condo.

DVD case as drug mule

With a photo of Sadler from the driver’s license database in hand, authorities checked with employees at the UPS store who confirmed that “Aaron Thompson” was indeed Steven Sadler. They also identified a blonde female “picking up and dropping off packages, and that she described herself as Thompson’s girlfriend.”

By February 2013, the UPS store had received a package for Aaron Thompson again. With a search warrant, authorities opened the package and found a “Sports Illustrated DVD,” which also contained “nine grams of a substance that field tested positive for methamphetamine.” In March 2013, authorities intercepted another package bound for Alaska, again with the same handwriting. In striking a deal with the recipient on reduced state felony charges, the Alaska man said that he had purchased the drugs from “NOD” on the Silk Road.

By May 2013, postal inspectors received warrants to put tracking devices on the Audi and another car associated with the suspects, a BMW. Not surprisingly, the suspects’ vehicles were seen consistently traveling to various post offices in the greater Seattle region. Authorities also conducted a controlled purchase via a confidential informant’s account in June 2013 from the NOD account.

Sadler was arrested on October 2, and White turned herself in the following day.

The suspects’ next court hearings are set in for October 15 and 17, respectively.

Across the pond

On Tuesday, British authorities announced that they had also arrested four men “hours after the FBI arrested the suspected creator of the Silk Road” last week. In partnership with US authorities, the National Crime Agency (NCA) arrested three men from Manchester and one from Devon who they believed were “significant users” of the Silk Road.

NCA Director General Keith Bristow said in a statement that his agency would remain vigilant in arresting and prosecuting more people involved in the notorious site, promising more arrests down the road. “These arrests send a clear message to criminals,” he said. “The hidden Internet isn’t hidden and your anonymous activity isn’t anonymous. We know where you are, what you are doing, and we will catch you.”