A pair of Californians were indicted on counts of money laundering and fentanyl distribution last Thursday after investigators traced their activities as darknet market vendors to their real-life identities. According to prosecutors, Holly Adams, 31, and Devlin Hosner, 33, ran separate vendor accounts on the ToRReZ and Dark0de markets respectively, which they used to sell fake Oxycontin pills that actually contained fentanyl.
Hosner operated his account under the vendor name its4real while Adams used the name igogrraawwr — a name which was ultimately traced to her account on ManyVids (a pornography subscription website) by the Northern California Illicit Digital Economy Task Force. A picture uploaded under the igogrraawwr account name displayed Adams’ drivers license, which investigators used to determine that Adams had joint automobile insurance registration with Hosner.
Screenshot of the ManyVids accounts started by Adams.
The two were first arrested in March at a hotel in Riverside County after federal agents executed a search warrant. Found in their possession were over 10,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills and 60 grams of methamphetamine. Freed on bail, Adams and Hosner were re-arrested at another location in Riverside County on April 12.
The pair managed to rack up over $800,000 in cryptocurrency across more than 1,100 sales that were conducted between May 2021 and March 2022. Five of these sales were made to undercover law enforcement officers, with the initial purchase made in the duo’s first month of operation. Surveillance cameras of a Riverside County postal facility captured images of Adams mailing out packages containing drug orders, which included the order placed by undercover agents.
A Coinbase account later determined to belong to Hosner had been used to convert nearly all the duo’s proceeds collected as vendors to cash. Payments for their products had been made over the two markets in the form of Bitcoin (BTC).