Austrian Sentenced For Ordering Drugs From Canada And The Netherlands

A 21-year-old from Bludenz, Austria was sentenced to 12 months of probation for ordering narcotics from the dark web and reselling them.

According to the defendant, he bought drugs from dark net vendors since the prices on the dark web were much cheaper than on the streets. The 21-year-old placed orders for packs of 233 grams of marijuana and 200 ecstasy tablets from Canada and the Netherlands between the end of 2015 and July 2016. The accused admitted that he sold 80 grams of marijuana, 125 ecstasy pills and three grams of amphetamines from the narcotics he bought from the dark net. According to his confession, he used cannabis, LSD and amphetamines. The suspect admitted that he smoked “a lot of marijuana” (he purchased from the dark net) at his home.

The 21-year-old, who is currently unemployed, was charged with an abuse of addiction at the Feldkirch Regional Court. He was sentenced on January 17 to 12 months on probation and an unconditional fine of 1,440 euros (he has to pay 4 euros each day for 360 days). Additionally, the suspect has to pay the state a sum of 2,000 euros for his income from the narcotics sales. Both prosecutor Philipp Höfle and the accused agreed on the verdict.

The maximum sentence for the accused could get for his offenses was three years in prison. The combined sentence imposed by Judge Richard Gschwenter is equivalent to one and half years in prison. The 21-year-old was relieved when he heard that his prison sentence was suspended.

Recently, Alexis Goosdeel, chief of The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), announced a new approach to fight narcotics trafficking on the dark web. According to the EMCDDA, they are planning to hire hackers to disrupt the flow and usability of dark net marketplaces.

The EMCDDA has been monitoring dark web marketplaces since the launch of the notorious Silk Road Marketplace. They once reported on the overall safety of narcotics use in the EU. On that topic, they stated that the rising popularity of dark web marketplaces makes the drugs safer.

“These markets have proven to be very adaptable, and it appears that the effects of such interventions on the online anonymous ecosystem are short term and those operating such sites develop new ways to evade detection, for example by improving encryption and anonymization. It is suggested that a likely future development will be completely decentralized marketplaces that exploit aspects of game theory to side-step current weaknesses — perhaps a ‘dark cloud’ on the horizon,” the EMCDDA report goes by.

According to the Sputnik, EMCDDA not only plans to hire hackers but “former drug offenders” to help their work. This new stance of the Monitoring Centre is quite surprising since their report on narcotics safety just said the opposite about dark net marketplaces.