Former police chief Yuri Zaitsev was just lately sentenced to eight years in jail for performing as a bounty hunter for a darkish net market. In December 2018, Zaitsev was working because the chief of his unit inside the Most important Directorate for Medication Management of the Republic of Khakassia — a regulation enforcement division which is analogous to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA. At the moment, he initiated contact with the operator of a darkish internet market, providing to assist search out a person who had appropriated medication that had been entrusted to him for placement in lifeless drops. 

In Russia, not like the U.S., most darkish net entrepreneurs don’t belief the put up workplace for shipments. The prevailing mode of dissemination of those unlawful merchandise is as a substitute accomplished by way of lifeless drops — a way of supply by which two events can go gadgets or data backwards and forwards with out ever needing to fulfill in individual.

In line with the Most important Investigation Division, the cop had obtained the equal of 52,000 roubles in Bitcoin (BTC) for his providers. On the time, this was equal to roughly, $750 or 0.2 BTC. He was discovered responsible on prices of bribery and the disclosure of categorized data.

In line with Zaitsev’s spouse, his prosecution was punishment for investigating senior officers inside his company. He was subsequently fired and prosecuted. From October-November 2019, Zaitsev uploaded plenty of movies to YouTube during which he allegedly uncovered corruption amongst senior officers in his Directorate. This seems to be what led to felony prices towards him for disclosure of categorized data. In November 2019, Zaitsev uploaded an enchantment to president Putin on YouTube during which he pleaded his case, however to no avail.

In the course of the unrelated Silk Street investigation, quite a few regulation enforcement officers fell afoul to what they perceived as simple, untraceable Bitcoin. DEA Particular Agent Carl Power managed to elicit 1,200 Bitcoin from Ross Ulbricht. He obtained the funds utilizing an elaborate scheme during which he had created a number of faux personas starting from a serious South American drug trafficker to a corrupt regulation enforcement official. One of many duties assigned to him by Ulbricht was looking down and murdering a former affiliate who allegedly had stolen Bitcoin from him. The precise thief was one other regulation enforcement official concerned within the investigation. The homicide was staged by Power, however by no means materialized actually.

The occasions that came about in Khakasia just a few years after the Silk Street saga appear in some methods like an affordable native knockoff of an costly HBO present. As Marx as soon as mentioned, historical past repeats itself “the primary time as tragedy, the second as farce”.