Heroin Vendor Supremesmoke Busted
Posted by: Benjamin Vitáris
August 22, 2015
On Tuesday morning, The Federal Drug Enforcement Administration led the search with assistance from Indianapolis police and U.S postal authorities. Investigators served a search warrant at Gray’s home around 6 a.m. He lives in a subdivision located on the 8400 block of Burket Way in Camby, Indiana. The LE authorities have been searching for Gray in his house with no luck, however, after a short period of time they have found him at his residence at Cloverleaf Apartments.
According to Josh J. Minkler, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, Supremesmoke was using Black Bank and other DNMs to sell heroin and other drugs.
He also stated:
“Heroin dealers cannot use the Internet to hide their illegal activity any longer, Our investigators have some of the most innovative technology available to make certain our cyber world remains safe from drug trafficking.”
This is a hard statement from the attorney since there are quite a bunch of drug dealers spread around DNMs on the whole darknet. The bust of Supremesmoke does not mean that they will surely catch all the heroin and other drug dealers on the deepnet.
Lee Gray is accused of accepting BTC (or/and other virtual currencies) in exchange for heroin and other narcotics.
Court documents state that Gray has been using the USPS for delivering the drugs to his buyers. The document also says that he both used priority mail and standard mail. As most of the vendors on DNMs, he was using false addresses for the ”sender’s address” section in order to conceal his identity.
“The U.S. Postal Inspection Service takes very seriously its mission to deter the illegal use of the mails for any criminal activity,” stated E.C. Woodson, Postal Inspector in Charge. He also said: “These crimes negatively impact each and every community and household, and we stand committed to working together to identify, investigate and bring to justice those who would attempt to mask their criminal activity through the use of the mail thereby violating the sanctity of the seal.”
The documents of the case reveal that Gray had opened multiple bank accounts and businesses both in his and her wife’s name.
It is also stated in the official court documents that Gray has been (obviously) using exchanges to convert his BTC to US Dollars. However, it does not say, which websites or domains did he use for exchanging.
Later on, the IRS was also involved in the case. IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent Stephen Boyd have made a statement about their involvement in the investigation: “When IRS Criminal Investigation gets involved, the drug dealer’s profits go up in smoke. IRS CI plays a unique role in targeting the profit and financial gains of narcotics traffickers on many levels. As a team, law enforcement will continue to pursue criminals operating in the cyber world and trace their illegal proceeds in the form of virtual currency.”
After the police have found him, Gray was brought out in handcuffs and placed into a car. He remained quiet as he walked to the car alongside with the two federal agents who have been escorting him.
Upon a successful case (by LE), Gray could be facing 20 years of jail.
Updated: 2015-08-22