Jack - KleptoCapture, Hydra, and Dark Craigslist (feat. Pete Strzok)

Episode Date: April 10, 2022

This week: a lot going on at the justice department with regards to Russia and cybersecurity; I’ll be chatting with Pete Strzok about the two men arrested this week for impersonating DHS officers and infiltrating the US Secret Service; an update on the ridiculous Durham probe; the UN suspension of Russia from the Human Rights Council; plus the Fantasy Indictment LeagueThe Mueller Report - Pt. 6Google Podcasts -https://bit.ly/3Krsg9WSupercast - https://dailybeans.supercast.com/dashboard/channels/episodes/21810Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/posts/mueller-report-6-27987789Peter Strzok:https://twitter.com/petestrzokFollow AG on Twitter:Dr. Allison Gill https://twitter.com/allisongillhttps://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrotehttps://twitter.com/dailybeanspodWant to support the show and get it ad-free and early?https://dailybeans.supercast.tech/Orhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeans

They might be giants that have been on the road for too long. Too long. And they might be giants aren't even sorry. Not even sorry. And audiences like the shows too much. Too much. And now they might be giants that are playing their breakthrough album, all of it.

And they still have time for other songs. They're fooling around. Who can stop? They might be giants and their liberal rocket gender. Who? No one. Disadvantaged pay for with somebody else's money. Hey, all.

This is Glenn Kirschner, and you're listening to Mueller She wrote. So to be clear, Mr. Trump has no financial relationships with any Russian oligarchs. That's what he said. That's what he said. That's what I said. That's obviously what our position is. I'm not aware of any of those activities.

I have been called a surrogate at a time, a two, and that campaign, and I didn't have, not have communications with the Russians. What do I have to get involved with Putin for having nothing to do with Putin? I've never spoken to him. I don't know anything about a mother than he will respect me.

Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. So it is political. You're a communist. No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring. Like all members of the oldest professional capitalist. Hello and welcome to Muller She Road.

I'm your host, A.G. Allison Gill. Big show today with a lot going on at the Justice Department with regards to Russia and cyber security. And I'll be chatting with Pete Struck about the two men arrested this week from impersonating DHS officers and infiltrating the U.S. Secret Service all the way up to the first lady and the White House grounds. And I have an update on the ridiculous Durham probe.

And of course, the UN's suspension of Russia from the Human Rights Council, which is very important. Also, there's a new episode of the MSW Book Club out today. I'm covering Go Back to Where You Came From and other helpful recommendations on how to become American by Wajahat Ali. So check that out and of course I'll be back on the beans tomorrow. Also, if you haven't been getting the daily beans in your Apple Podcast feed, all you got to do is unsubscribe and re-subscribe. And while you're there, leave us a rating. We would love to hear from you. All right, we have a lot to get to, so let's jump in with just the facts.

First up, I want to read some comments from the Attorney General, Merrick Garland. He says, good morning. When we announced the launch of the kleptocapture task force last month, I said we would leave no stone unturned in our efforts to investigate, arrest, and prosecute those whose criminal acts enable Russia to continue its unjust war in Ukraine. That is a promise we are keeping. I'm joined here by Deputy Attorney General Monaco, an FBI Director Ray. Also here are Assistant Attorney General Olsen, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General

McQuade, FBI Cyber Section Chief Frigum, and Klepto Captured Task Force Director Adams. Today, we're announcing several actions the Justice Department has taken to disrupt and prosecute criminal activity associated with the Russian regime. The first action we're announcing today is the unceiling of an indictment, charging Russian oligarch Constantine Malovyev with sanctions violations. As the indictment charges, the Treasury Department previously identified Malovyev as one of the main sources of financing for Russians promoting separatism in Crimea and for providing material support for the so-called Donetsk People's Republic.

After being sanctioned by the United States, Malovyev attempted to evade the sanctions by using co-conspirators to surreptitiously acquire and run media outlets across Europe. We're also announcing the seizure of millions of dollars from an account at a US financial institution, which the indictment alleges constitutes proceeds traceable to Mowafiev's sanctions violations. The Justice Department will continue to use all of its authorities to hold accountable Russian oligarchs and others who seek to evade US sanctions. The second action we're announcing today is the disruption of a global botnet controlled by the Russian military intelligence agency commonly known as GRU.

That's where Fancy and cozy bear reside. The Russian government has recently used similar infrastructure to attack Ukrainian targets. Fortunately, we were able to disrupt this botnet before it could be used. Thanks to our close work with international partners, we were able to detect the infection of thousands of network hardware devices. We were then able to disable GRU's control over those devices before the botnet could be weaponized. Today's announcements are part of a series of actions that the Justice Department has recently taken to disrupt and prosecute criminal activity associated with Russia.

Yesterday, together with our German law enforcement partners, we seized the Russia-affiliated Hydra Darknet Market, the world's largest illegal marketplace on the Dark Web. We also filed criminal charges against Russia-Russia National national who we alleged administered the market's technical infrastructure. So there's another indictment here. And I know I should have saved this for the fantasy indictment league, but we do have another indictment in the fantasy indictment league today. So we'll get there. Garland continues. On the day before that, again together with our international partners, we seized the tango, a super yacht owned by Victor Vexelberg, another sanctioned oligarch with close ties to the Russian regime, and also a donor to

Donald Trump's campaign. I added the Donald Trump's campaign part. On the same day, Garland says, we obtain seizure warrants targeting the assets of several additional sanctioned Russian nationals. The Justice Department will continue to work alongside our international partners to hold accountable those who break our laws, threaten our national security and harm our allies. Our message to those who continue to enable the Russian regime through their criminal conduct is this.

It does not matter how far you sail your yacht. It does not matter how well you conceal your assets. It does not matter how cleverly you write your malware or hide your online activity. The Justice Department will use every available tool to find you, disrupt your plots, and hold you accountable. Very cool. Hydra, botnet, dark web. This is like, this is a bad ass shit.

Also from the Department of Justice, and this I'm reading from their website, the Justice Department Wednesday announced a court authorized operation conducted in March of this year to disrupt a two-tiered global botnet of thousands of infected network hardware devices under the control of a threat actor known to security researchers as sandworm, which the US government has previously attributed to the main intelligence directorate of the general staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the GRU. This is what we were talking about.

The operation copied and removed malware from vulnerable internet connected firewall devices that SandWarm used for command and control C2 of the underlying botnet. Although the operation did not involve access to the SandWarm malware on the thousands of underlying victim devices worldwide, referred to as bots, the disabling of the C2 mechanism severed those bots from the SandWarm C2 devices control. So cool. On February 23rd, the UK's National Cybersecurity Center, the Department of Homeland Security, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the FBI and the National Security Agency released an advisory identifying the Cyclops Blink malware, which targets network devices

manufactured by Watch guard technologies, Inc. and ASUS-T-E-K computer Inc. ASUS. These network devices are often located on the perimeter of a victim's computer network, thereby providing sandworm with the potential ability to conduct malicious activities against all computers within the network. As explained in the advisory, the malware appeared to have emerged as early as June 2019, and was the apparent successor to another sandworm botnet called VPN filter, which the Department of Justice disrupted through a court authorized operation in 2018.

The same day as the advisory, watch guard released detection and remediation tools for users of watch guard services. The advisory and watch guard's guidance both recommended that device owners deploy WatchGuard's tools to remove any malware infection and patch their devices to the latest versions of available firmware. Later, ASUS released its own guidance to help compromised ASUS device owners mitigate the threat posed by Cyclops Blink.

The public and private sector efforts were effective, resulting in a successful remediation of thousands of compromised devices. However, by mid-March, a majority of the originally compromised devices remained infected. Following the initial court authorization on March 18th, the department's operation was successful in copying and removing the malware from all remaining identified

C2 devices. It also closed the external management ports that Sandworm was using to access those C2 devices, as recommended in WatchGards remediation guidance. That's a non-persistent change that the owner of an affected device can reverse through a device restart. These steps had the immediate effect

of preventing Sandworm from accessing these C2 devices thereby disrupting Sandworm's control of the infected bot devices controlled by the remediated C2 devices. However, watch guard and ASUS devices that acted as bots may remain vulnerable to sandworm if device owners do not take the watch guard in ASUS recommended direction and remediation steps. The department was strongly, the department strongly encourages network defenders and

device owners to review the February 23rd Advisory and Watchguard and ASIS releases. The operation announced today leveraged direct communications with a sandworm malware on the identified C2 devices and other than collecting the underlying C2 devices serial numbers through an automated script and copying the C2 malware, it did not search for or collect any other information from the relevant victim networks. I just want you to know, we just shut down the tunnels for these sand worms, and we didn't get your personal information. Further, the operation did not involve any FBI communications with bot devices. Since prior to the February 23rd advisory, the FBI has been attempting to provide notice to owners of infected watch guard devices in the United States through foreign law enforcement

partners abroad. For those domestic victims who contact information was not publicly available, the FBI has contacted providers, such as the Victims Internet Service Provider, and has asked those providers to provide notice to the victims. As required by the terms of this court's authorization, the FBI has provided notice to the owners of the domestic C2 devices, from which the FBI copied and removed the Cyclops Blink malware. And in United Nations news, the General Assembly voted Thursday to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council after high-profile allegations of atrocities committed by Russian

soldiers during the war in Ukraine. The vote was 93 in favor, 24 against, and 58 abstentions. The draft of the resolution says the General Assembly may, quote, suspend the rights of membership in the Human Rights Council of a member of the council that commits gross and systematic violations of human rights. The draft resolution adds that the council has grave concern regarding reports of, quote, gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights and violations of international and humanitarian law committed by the Russian Federation during the invasion of Ukraine.

General Assembly needed to vote in favor by two-thirds of the country's present, and voting to remove Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. The measure suspends Russia's membership in the council, and would launch a review of the matter if the UN deems it appropriate. And then on to the Durham thing, and this is dirty. Durham is dirty, y'all. Here's an introduction in a Sussman motion to dismiss the case if the special counsel does not immunize Rodney Jaffee and Memorandum in support of immunizing Rodney Jaffy. Now, in case you didn't know, Rodney Jaffy is Tech-Exec-1. He's the one that helped gather all the information on the Alphabet server communications that Susman took to Jim Baker at the FBI to say,

hey, take a look at this. And here's the introduction. This just sort of runs it down generally for you. And this is what Michael Susman's lawyers say about the special counsel. They say the special counsel has made Rodney Jaffy a cornerstone of its case against Mr. Sussman. Most conspicuously, the special counsel charges that Sussman falsely told James Baker that he was not conveying information on behalf of a client when Sussman was actually conveying it on behalf of

Mr. Jaffy. While Mr. Jaffey is prepared to testify in Mr. Susman's defense and to offer critical exculpatory testimony on behalf of Mr. Susman, including that Mr. Joffey's work was not connected to the Clinton campaign, the special counsel is making it impossible for Mr. Susman to call Mr. Joffey as an exculpatory witness at trial. The special counsel is doing so by manufacturing claims of continuing criminal liability for Mr. Joffey that are forcing Mr. Joffey to assert his Fifth Amendment right.

It is now April 2022. It is simply inconceivable that Mr. Joffey faces any real continuing criminal exposure in connection with the special counsel investigation, because at, sidebar here, the statute of limitations has passed for any action that Mr. Jaffee had in regards to this. But special counsel Durham is like, I don't know, we might have something up our sleeve. Ruru-duh, and he's doing that to suppress the ex-culpatory testimony of this guy.

They go on to say the special counsel is yet again overreaching and doing so in violation of Mr. Susman's fifth and sixth amendment rights. Accordingly, inconsistent with the law of multiple circuits confronting prosecutorial misconduct of the sort here, Susman asked this court present the special counsel with option, the option of granting Mr. Jaffee immunity or seeing the case dismissed. So basically, Durham and the prosecutors, Ford Ford Durham are saying, we may or may not have some criminal stuff on you, Mr. Jaffee. And although Jaffee didn't do anything wrong,

he doesn't want to say anything that could possibly lead to another bullshit indictment from Durham. So he was going to testify because Durham had reached out to Jaffee to try to get him to testify for the prosecution. And he was like, no. And then he's going to, they find out he's going to testify for susmen on behalf of the defense and say, a sculptor's stuff like, we weren't there working for the Clinton campaign. I wasn't doing this for the Clinton campaign. And so Durham says, well, you know, the statute of limitations is up, but we might have some other stuff on you. We're not going to tell you what. We haven't charged you with anything, but you know, just we might have something like sort of damacles so that Joffie's like,

well, what the fuck do they even have? I got to plead the fifth and pleading the fifth means he can't talk about the exculpatory evidence that would blow Durham's case out of the water. It would make Durham's case a pile of shit, which I know what already is. So he's there hanging this veiled threat over Jaffa's head to get him to not testify on behalf of Susman.

And it's bullshit. So we'll see what the judge has to say about that. And also in the news this week, an incredible story about two men arrested by the FBI for impersonating DHS officers and joining me to discuss his author of the New York Times bestseller compromised in 26 year FBI and Army veteran Pete Strack. Hi Pete.

Hey, Allison. Good to see you. So lots of tidbits of this story keep dripping out. It was first, it was the FBI's rating apartment building at Navy yard. Then it was two guys and person need DHS officers. Then all this stuff that they confiscated and that they had all this information about people, everyone who lived in the complex. And now there's potential claims of ties to Iran and Pakistan by one of these guys. And no one's confirmed that yet. And some folks saying that one of these guys was that want there a US citizen, one of these guys was born in the Midwest. And so it's all very coming out, new information,

and we're trying to parse what we need to listen to from what we should ignore while this investigation continues. But what are your top line thoughts on this? This is an intense story. Yeah, and the way kind of the question I think is Twitter handle a south bar. I forget his true name. But he framed it, I think, as how I'm thinking about it.

This may be less the Americans and more burn after reading. I think it's a bunch of things. The initial thought was like, the secret service folks were wrapped into these actions they were provided allegedly over $40,000 worth of free rent in a couple of places. And the scope of access that these two guys had, particularly to US law enforcement, particularly the Secret Service. One of the Secret Service agents, none of the Secret Service agents have been criminally charged or have alleged to have criminally done anything wrong, although my understanding

is all four of them are on administrative leave. But one of them was on the first liaison's protective detail. Two others were UD, which is the uniform division they are, you know, actually uniform secret service police officers who guard the White House compound and provide physical security. And they'll also do, if like a foreign had a state, will come into town, both the secret service broadly will handle security in many cases for that.

So there was a lot of tremendously concerning access, and what appeared to be a lot of money being spent, and so the question in my mind was first, where's all the money coming from, and what are they getting out of it? Well, some good folks online kind of have dug through kind of civil filings, and it turns out in DC that the United States secret police, which

was the name of their LLC, has been sued a couple of times for about $100,000 in 2020 and 2021 for unpaid rent. So, the answer to who paid for all these apartments may be that nobody paid for these apartments. And it certainly still looks like this might be a huge scam, just for whatever reason that, you know, with these guys, like law enforcement cosplay, warping, whatever term for, you know, pretending to be law enforcement that you want to use, was that what they were doing. Of course, I think one of them, as you said, he claimed to somebody

that he had been to Pakistan and Iran. There is, I think, in his passport, I saw which sounds more reputable, statement-wise, not him, but, you know, things that were seized. That his passport had some Pakistani visas and that travel record showed travel to, I think it was Dubai and Turkey. So, at any time you have international travel like that, you can't fly straight to Iran from the US and even fly to Pakistan. And you typically would transit through the Middle East. So, you know, is that consistent with them traveling abroad potentially? But that's something can be tracked down. Two points and then I'll stop talking. One is both the agent who's the affiant and the complaint, as well as the section at the DCEO's Attorney's Office who are handling this, right now at least to the public corruption folks.

So this isn't being handled by a national security group at the U of the Attorney's Office. It's not being the complaint at least wasn't sworn out by counterintelligence agent in their domestic terrorism agent. You were signed out by somebody who works public corruption. And this wasn't, and then, you know, the second broad thought was, this was, they were really noisy, right?

I mean, they were, they were flashy. You know, people knew they had cars with lights, they were wearing guns around all over the place, concerning somebody so much that, you know, the first thing in the Metropolitan Police Department in DC was called to respond to these guys who were carrying guns. Now, you know, they were able to persuade MPD that they were should have had them. But if this were some high-speed intelligence operation, they weren't acting quietly at all.

They were doing a lot of jobs that would have brought a lot of attention to themselves and did bring attention to themselves. So, I don't know, still early. A lot more to come up, but I'm starting to think it might be just a huge scam, which is pretty embarrassing, as it turns out, to the Secret Service. Yeah, and that stuck out to me too, public corruption. Because talk a little bit about what the public corruption unit does. Yeah, so it's typically for the US Attorney's Office, it's broad.

It's fraud, it's broad. It's fraud, public corruption, and anytime that somebody would, you know, things like impersonating a federal officer are public corruption offenses. So that is something that those agents in the one hand and that the US Attorney's attorney's on the other would be familiar with the violations of law investigating and prosecuting things when it comes to stuff like impersonating an HSI agent. What they don't do is go in there and sit there and say, okay, you know, what are these folks potential links to foreign intelligence services? Let's go and look at all the intelligence that's either in the FBI or the rest of the US intelligence community to see, were there any contacts between these folks and known intelligence officers either in the United States overseas and reaching out to ask the CIA and NSA and foreign

liaison partners the same questions. Now it might get there. I think it sounds like my sense was this moved very quickly. It wasn't overnight I mean there was between the time the post-lenspector started looking at it and the time they were arrested several weeks But I got the sense that From the time the post-lenspector's looked at it they went to DHS DHS said these aren't our employees and went to the FBI That move very quickly likely because of two One, the secret service people that were involved in their proximity to the White House and the First Lady, and two, the presence of these

weapons. So I don't think, you know, if you didn't have those potential physical threats, you might see a little bit longer together information before the arrest, but I think in this case, it was really, really justified to go out and get, you know, get a complaint, get them arrested, remove the threat, and then keep investigating. And if you have to, I think they're going to be indicted here shortly. And if you have to, then later supersede, or then if you have to, you know, if the public corruption guys have to reach out to the national security folks and say, hey, what do you know about?

What can you track down about this foreign travel? And do you see, or does anybody have any links, or people we can talk to you to find out about this alleged, you know, ISI connection, or ISO something, you know, people speculating about, you know, IRGCQF sort of connections, which everything should be checked out, but I think a lot of information is yet to come. And that would go on. And what do you make of, I'm frankly surprised that the Secret Service agents, this didn't, were they really duped?

I mean, because they know and send anything for a year, and it was the postal service inspector that brought these guys down and not the Secret Service itself, and we're not talking about low-level Secret Service guys. Yeah, I mean, well, I don't know what I think the secret, I mean, my sense was the two UD guy, what I saw indicated, seemed to indicate to me that they were kind of entry level either UD officers, the uniform division officers or agents

on the protective detail side, I didn't see anything in there that indicated they were a higher level middle level managers, little on high level managers. There were others in the building, I think I saw something, and there was a person they contacted, I think I saw something, and there was a person they contacted,

and I think worked for HSI, who actually said, upon hearing this, when and check them in databases and said, oh, I don't see you. I don't see you in our directory, you're listening in the said, oh, that's because we're on high speed on a cover assignment,

and we wouldn't show up in the directory. And they birthed, that's five of that. But I don't, there's a difference between like, look, I mean, probably most government employees are a little cheap, but my experience, if I'm a law enforcement officer, there's a extraordinarily cheap, you know, drive 10 miles out of your way because a place can give you free coffee

with your meal if you're law enforcement. So, you know, to save a dollar 50 in the cup of coffee. But that's really different from taking $40,000 on the arm of free rent. And even if somebody were to say, oh, hey, do you need a place to stay? We have this huge undercover operation running. We have these vacant apartments.

Do you want to live there? There's a difference between spending the night with somebody versus taking a pen house apartment that's billing out at $3,000 to $4,000 a month in the lack of judgment to just assume that's all fine and not ask a supervisor, a squadmate, your ethics officer. I don't understand how that can happen. That I think speaks to there, I am sure is some real, so it's a better way,

some real soul searching going on within the secret service about, you know, what is it that, where have we gone sideways? We're not one, but two people got themselves wrapped up into having this massive amount of gifting through people it turns out

who knows what they are. But that speaks to a need for a lack of training, a certain potentially observation about the sort of ethos and how you correct that is going to be pretty important to do pretty fast. But it's not a good moment for them. No, and you and I both know that, worth regards to lack of training, you can't lack training in those positions.

It's online training. You have to take it every year. You have to, no matter how far up or down the chain of command you are in any federal government position. And we've seen it where the animation of Karen and Bill and Karen wants to give you a thumb drive to put in and play video game. And, but you know, mostly how to spot insider threats, but also the ethics stuff we have to take on an annual basis. And that's about gifts. And, you know, I couldn't even bring a refrigerator into the

break room of a call center at the Department of Veterans Affairs. And you have to check on those things and you know to check on those things. I guess unless you're super brand new and it just doesn't make sense and you come from private industry. Yeah, and I don't know if the thinking was, oh hey, this isn't a gift from some private citizen. It's like the US government is already paying for these places and they just need somebody to live there. So I'm not really accepting

a gift that I believed it was, you know, something that was part, since it was part of a government operation, I didn't need to report it because it wasn't a gift. But it just, I, I wouldn't even in that, unless it was my supervisor, some canvas that went out within the office from the undercover coordinator saying, Hey, we've got an operation going. We need somebody to live in this apartment or these two apartments, you know, apply. And I knew it was sanctioned and everything was fine. If I had some rando from another agency

who's just some, you know, line level agent who claimed to be working for some bogus company, it just would not be something I would eagerly jump into at all. It just wouldn't happen. Again, I don't want to, you know, the intent is not to dump all over Secret Service, but, you know, again, the fact of the matter is their folks were wrapped up in this. And it's that there are a couple of those through the two big tracks, right? Like, one, who are these two?

Ultimately, what were their goals and who are they talking to? And then on the other side, like, what's the issue here? Well, then, you know, not just secret service, but, you know, is it broader than that? And to have somebody, this amateur, or she was able to get folks who were on the first ladies' protective detail, that, you know, that much on the hook is concerning. So we'll see. I'm hoping they were just dudes who just wanted to play cops. That's the best case scenario here, isn't it? Yeah, I think.

I mean, the good, yeah, right? Daging a bullet, is it? We're not, and that's unfortunately kind of literal, not figurative, that we're these malicious actors these malicious actors, were they a little more, you know, quiet or sophisticated in what they were doing and didn't have, you know, weren't so flashy that when the Postal Inspectors, you know, out there investigating a Postal Care, you got, you know, attacked that all the everybody in the building said, oh, talk to the two HSI guys because they might have seen something and everybody knows who they are.

So again, it's one of those things that I think causes you, systems you assume were very robust and very protected. This is one of those events that causes you to kind of, I mean, it takes your breath away a little bit. And, you know, it makes me question for the vaunted, the level of protection that we all assume is provided to the White House and the President and the Protectees. This shows some real, real gaps in which need to be filled and protected quickly. Yeah, and I had the same feeling when we learned that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was in the DNC

when those pipe bombs were found. So same kind of like, what do you guys do it? Yeah, and that, I mean, again, to the, you know, I don't, what, the limited in mind, I do know about what how in areas are swept for movements, and, you know, and what's planned and what's spur the moment. There's a lot of variants in that. So, you know, without knowing what her plans were,

and how she came to being the DNC, and how far in advance that was planned, and how long she was there, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of there's a lot of Google wiggle room and unknowns in there. Yeah, yeah, but and these two jokers will see. We'll keep an eye on it and I appreciate you stopping by to talk about it. Everybody pick up compromised New York Times bestseller, very excellent book. Thanks Pete Struck. Thank you. All right everybody everybody. It's time for the fantasy indictment league.

I'm going to be a candidate. No, it is going to be a candidate. I'm a dick. And I'm a candidate. I'm a candidate. I'm a candidate. I can't. It's going to be OK.

Just calm down. I can't calm down. I'm going to be a candidate. And if you had some Randall Russians on your team this week, give yourself a point for each one. Good job. The Justice Department has announced Tuesday, the seizure of Hydra Market, the world's largest and longest running Darknet Market. In 2021, Hydra accounted for an estimated 80 percent of all Darknet Market

related cryptocurrency transactions, 80 percent. And since 2015, the marketplace has received approximately $5.2 billion with a B in cryptocurrency. The seizure of the Hydra servers in cryptocurrency wallets containing 25 million worth of Bitcoin was made this morning in Germany by the German Federal Criminal Police and in coordination with U.S. law enforcement. So this is a reference to what we were talking about at the top of the show. Hydra was an online criminal marketplace that enabled users in mainly Russian speaking countries to buy and sell illicit goods and services, including illegal drugs, stolen financial information, fraudulent identification documents, and money laundering and mixing services, anonymously

and outside the reach of law enforcement. Transactions on Hydra were conducted in cryptocurrency, Hydra's operators charged a commission for every transaction conducted on Hydra. That's a crime. In conjunction with the shutdown of Hydra, the department also announced the criminal charges against Demetri Olegovich Pavlov, age 30, a resident of Russia, for conspiracy to distribute narcotics and conspiracy to commit money laundering, in connection

with his operation and administration of the servers used to run Hydra. According to the indictment, vendors of Hydra could create accounts on the site to advertise their illegal products, and buyers could create accounts to view and purchase the vendor's products. Hydra vendors offered a variety of illicit drugs for sale,

including cocaine, methamphetamine, LSD, heroin, and other opioids. The vendors openly advertise their drugs on Hydra, typically including photographs and descriptions of the substances. Buyers rated the sellers and their products on a five, typically including photographs and descriptions of the substances. Buyers rated the sellers and their products on a five-star rating system and vendors ratings and reviews were prominently displayed on the Hydra site. Hydra also featured numerous vendors selling false identification documents. Users could search for vendors selling their desired type of identification document, for example a US passport or a driver's license, and filter or sort by the item's

price. Many vendors of false identification documents offered to customize the documents based on photographs or other information provided by the buyers. Numerous vendors also sold hacking tools and hacking services through Hydra. Hacking vendors commonly offered to illegally access online accounts of the buyers choosing. In this way, buyers could select their victims and hire professional hackers to gain access to the victim's communications and take

over the victim's accounts. Hydra vendors also offered a robust array of money laundering and so-called cashout services, which allowed Hydra users to convert their Bitcoin into a variety of forms of currency supported by Hydra's wide array of vendors. In addition, Hydra offered an in-house mixing service to Launder and then process vendors with draws.

Mixing services allow customers for a fee to send Bitcoin to a designated recipient in a manner that was designed to conceal the source or owner of the Bitcoin. Hydra's money laundering features were so in demand that some users would set up a Shell vendor account for the express purpose of running money through Hydra's Bitcoin wallets as a laundering technique. It goes on here to say starting in or about November 2015, Pavlov is alleged to have operated

a company, prom service LTD known as hosting company full drive and all-wheel drive and four by four hosts dot Russia, that administered Hydra's servers, PromService. During that time, Pavlov threw his company PromService administered Hydra's servers, which allowed the market to operate as a platform, used by thousands of drug dealers and other unlawful vendors to distribute large quantities of illegal substances, and other illicit goods and services to thousands of buyers, and to launder billions of dollars derived from these unlawful transactions. As an active administrator in hosting Hydra's servers, Pavlov allegedly conspired with other

operators of Hydra to further the site's success by providing the critical infrastructure that allowed Hydra to operate and thrive in a competitive darknet market environment. In doing so, Pavlov is alleged to have facilitated Hydra's activities and allowed Hydra to reap commissions worth millions of dollars generated from the illicit sales conducted through the site. Whew. So it's like a Russian darknet craigslist, basically, and then they would take a cut. And that's why this guy is indicted. Oh, and they would launder it.

That's, that's fascinating. It's like a Bitcoin laundromat. All right. And with that, my fantasy indictment, LeaguePix, I'm going to continue to keep random Russians on my bench. And of course, I'll keep Matt Gaetz, L.A.K. and Egggles from the middle district of Florida. And I'll also keep Rudy Tonzing and DeGeneva from the Southern District, Sydney Powell from the DC-US Attorney's Office and Super seatingitements for Tom Barrick out of the Eastern District of New York, and George Nader out of the

DC U.S. Attorney's Office. That was my 10. I'm actually going to start a side draft here for one six, for the January 6th defendants, and I'm going to pick Tariot and some of his co-conspirators for Superseating Seditious Conspiracy Charges, along with Alex Jones and Ali Alexander, maybe not for seditious conspiracy, but I think they're gonna be indicted soon. All right, with that, I will catch you tomorrow on the Daily Beans. Again, if you're not getting the Daily Beans

in your feed, just unsubscribe and re-subscribe. Give us a rating while you're there, and I'll be back on the Beans tomorrow with Dana. And also, don't forget new episode of the MSW Book Club out now, and thanks again to our patrons for helping us keep off Spotify. Every day I learned something new about that platform and it makes me glad that I'm not there and I'm so thankful for you who are making up for the difference in in lost revenue

because that's how we pay people. All right, until tomorrow on the beans, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mental health, and vote blue over Q. I've been A.G. And this is Muller She Wrote. Muller She Wrote is written and produced by Allison Gill in partnership with MSW Media, Sound Design and Engineering, or by Molly Hockey. Jesse Egan is our copywriter and our art and web designer by Joe Elrider at Moxie Design Studios. Muller she wrote as a proud member of MSW Media, a group of creator-owned podcasts focused on news, justice and politics. For more information visit MSW Media dot com.

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