PGP public key and self-service postal kiosk expose online drug dealers

Enlarge / Abdullah Almashwali and his co-defendant used a self-serve kiosk like this one to mail illegal drugs. (credit: Aranami)

Just days before he was set to go to trial in Fresno, California, a Brooklyn man agreed to the government's assertion that he sold heroin and cocaine on AlphaBay. That site is one of the largest Dark Web marketplaces currently operating since Silk Road was seized and shut down in 2013.

On Friday morning, lawyers representing Abdullah Almashwali appeared before US District Judge Dale A. Drozd and filed a guilty plea to three counts of drug charges, likely in exchange for a lighter sentence. Almashwali was charged in August 2016 along with a co-conspirator, Chaudhry Ahmad Farooq. Farooq pled guilty in January 2017 and has yet to be sentenced.

According to an affidavit filed by a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, the two men-selling under the names "DarkApollo" and "Area51"-made key mistakes online that ultimately betrayed them. Those monikers advertised that they were directly importing heroin from Afghanistan.

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