A Ukrainian criminal who claimed to be behind a plot to send packages of heroin purchased from an online ‘dark market’ to veteran security blogger Brian Krebs has been arrested in Italy on suspicion of selling stolen credit cards, according to a BBC report.
Sergei “Fly” Vovnenko was the founder of a crime forum called “thecc.biz”, which Krebs describes on his blog Krebs on Security, as a “closely guarded crime forum”.
Krebs vs 'The Fly'
Krebs said that “the Fly”, also known as “Flycracker”, began his campaign against him with a campaign of unpleasant and profane Twitter attacks, and also changed his profile picture on the network to be an image of an action figure holding up Krebs’ severed head.
Krebs said, “Shortly after Fly began sending those nasty tweets, I secretly gained access to his forum, where I learned that he had hatched a plot to buy heroin on the Silk Road, have it shipped to my home, and then spoof a call from one of my neighbors to the local police when the drugs arrived. Thankfully, I was able to warn the cops in advance, even track the package along with the rest of the forum members thanks to a USPS tracking link that Fly had posted into a discussion thread on his forum.”
Ten bags of a white powder were delivered to Krebs’s home after forum members clubbed together to purchase heroin from the online “drug market” Silk Road, a black market site (since closed), which offered illegal drugs for sale via the Tor network.
“Flycracker” posted a message saying, ““Guys, it became known recently that Brian Krebs is a heroin addict and he desperately needs the smack, so we have started the “Helping Brian Fund”, and shortly we will create a bitcoin wallet called ‘Drugs for Krebs’ which we will use to buy him the purest heroin on the Silk Road. My friends, his withdrawal is very bad, let’s join forces to help the guy! We will save Brian from the acute heroin withdrawal and the world will get slightly better!”
Krebs had previously been targeted with false calls to local police claiming that there was a hostage situation at his home – resulting in heavily armed officers surrounding the premises.
Bags of heroin
Flycracker and his colleagues raised two bitcoins – then priced around $200 – and were seemingly able to buy 10 bags of heroin from a Silk Road supplier known as “Maestro”. Flycracker talked to other forum members to ensure a call was placed to law enforcement shortly after delivery.
“12 sacks of heroin [the seller gives 2 free sacks for a 10-sacks order] are on the road, can anyone make a call [to the police] from neighbors, with a record?,” Flycracker wrote. “Seller said the package will be delivered after 3 days, on Tuesday. If anyone calls then please say that drugs are hidden well.”
The story of Krebs’s exclusve revelations of data breaches and other major stores has been optioned as a feature film by Sony, as reported by We Live Security here. The studio has bought the rights to the New York Times article, "Reporting From the Web’s Underbelly," which told Krebs’ story in the wake of his exclusive revelations about the data breach at Target.
