Australians were over-represented on the discussion forums, where they would start their own threads to confer on which overseas vendors had the highest success rates of beating Australian Customs, or which Australian vendors had the best drugs. The large number of Australian members could be attributed at least in part to the incredibly high prices Australians paid for their party drugs. We have always paid a premium for illicit drugs thanks to our geographical isolation and relatively small population. Silk Road offered an alternative.
As the use of the site by Australians to purchase their drugs cheaply from overseas grew, so too did a sideline in vendors using Silk Road to resell those exact same drugs at four times the price to their fellow Australians. The number of vendors shipping exclusively within our borders grew. For the buyers it meant receiving quality-tested drugs overnight at similar prices to those they were used to paying on the street. There was also the comfort of parcels not passing through customs, which meant both a better probability of arriving and much lower penalties if a package happened to be intercepted.
For the Australian vendors, it was a quick and easy way of getting a 300 per cent or more return on investment. Five grams of very high-quality MDMA, for example, could be purchased from Europe for about $340 and used to create forty effective capsules that could be resold for around $35 each to Australian Silk Road users – still a better deal than the up to $50 they might be expected to pay at a nightclub for unknown goods.
Once he was introduced to Silk Road, Sam Tyler never looked back. Initially only purchasing from Australian dealers, he eventually realised that he could obtain the same drugs far more economically by buying direct from overseas. He experimented with drugs from Germany, the Netherlands, the US and the UK and eventually settled on a couple of vendors he could trust.
An avid traveller, Sam soon discovered that another pleasant effect of Silk Road for recreational drug users was the fact that suddenly dealers were available in any town, anywhere in the world. He became most appreciative of this when he travelled to Las Vegas in 2012. Usually when holidaying he simply took a hiatus from drugs, unless he happened to meet a friendly local with a penchant for the same substances. This year things were going to be different.
After three days of research into American vendors who had a good reputation for servicing the area, scouring the forums for other people who had ordered to hotels, asking questions and prevaricating over whether it was a wise move, Sam settled on a seller. Worried that the package would arrive too early or too late, he messaged back and forth until he was satisfied that the seller, ‘Morpheous’, was aware of the importance of the mission before finally placing an order.
Sam loved the tackiness of Vegas, the excess, the colours and sounds and vibe of the place. And how much would each of those things be enhanced by the 2 grams of molly (the name given by dance enthusiasts to MDMA) that was due to arrive at his hotel on his second day there, a couple of days before the Electric Daisy Carnival dance party.
His MDMA didn’t arrive on the second day. About an hour after he’d settled into his room, just as he was considering his options for the afternoon, the phone rang.
‘Is this Mr Sam Tyler?’
Sam agreed it was.
‘We have a package here for a Mr S. Tyler. Could you come to hotel security, please?’
Hotel security did not sound like the proper place for what was ostensibly a package of papers – reception sounded like the proper place to hold mail. Sam wasn’t exactly a super-criminal. He’d sent himself a greeting card from New York City, where he had spent a few days before arriving at Las Vegas, so that he would have more than one piece of mail arrive while he was there. But he deduced it couldn’t be that because the security officer
As the use of the site by Australians to purchase their drugs cheaply from overseas grew, so too did a sideline in vendors using Silk Road to resell those exact same drugs at four times the price to their fellow Australians. The number of vendors shipping exclusively within our borders grew. For the buyers it meant receiving quality-tested drugs overnight at similar prices to those they were used to paying on the street. There was also the comfort of parcels not passing through customs, which meant both a better probability of arriving and much lower penalties if a package happened to be intercepted.
For the Australian vendors, it was a quick and easy way of getting a 300 per cent or more return on investment. Five grams of very high-quality MDMA, for example, could be purchased from Europe for about $340 and used to create forty effective capsules that could be resold for around $35 each to Australian Silk Road users – still a better deal than the up to $50 they might be expected to pay at a nightclub for unknown goods.
Once he was introduced to Silk Road, Sam Tyler never looked back. Initially only purchasing from Australian dealers, he eventually realised that he could obtain the same drugs far more economically by buying direct from overseas. He experimented with drugs from Germany, the Netherlands, the US and the UK and eventually settled on a couple of vendors he could trust.
An avid traveller, Sam soon discovered that another pleasant effect of Silk Road for recreational drug users was the fact that suddenly dealers were available in any town, anywhere in the world. He became most appreciative of this when he travelled to Las Vegas in 2012. Usually when holidaying he simply took a hiatus from drugs, unless he happened to meet a friendly local with a penchant for the same substances. This year things were going to be different.
After three days of research into American vendors who had a good reputation for servicing the area, scouring the forums for other people who had ordered to hotels, asking questions and prevaricating over whether it was a wise move, Sam settled on a seller. Worried that the package would arrive too early or too late, he messaged back and forth until he was satisfied that the seller, ‘Morpheous’, was aware of the importance of the mission before finally placing an order.
Sam loved the tackiness of Vegas, the excess, the colours and sounds and vibe of the place. And how much would each of those things be enhanced by the 2 grams of molly (the name given by dance enthusiasts to MDMA) that was due to arrive at his hotel on his second day there, a couple of days before the Electric Daisy Carnival dance party.
His MDMA didn’t arrive on the second day. About an hour after he’d settled into his room, just as he was considering his options for the afternoon, the phone rang.
‘Is this Mr Sam Tyler?’
Sam agreed it was.
‘We have a package here for a Mr S. Tyler. Could you come to hotel security, please?’
Hotel security did not sound like the proper place for what was ostensibly a package of papers – reception sounded like the proper place to hold mail. Sam wasn’t exactly a super-criminal. He’d sent himself a greeting card from New York City, where he had spent a few days before arriving at Las Vegas, so that he would have more than one piece of mail arrive while he was there. But he deduced it couldn’t be that because the security officer
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