It's frightening really, i mean we trust the vendors not to save names and addresses as insurance...or at all, but I was just reading on the OVDB forum on this thread [ http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=17108.msg170210#msg170210] and I mean, I guess if I was a vendor and I got caught I would do whatever I could to get out of things, you know? scary
This is different. In the world of hacking + carding pretty much half the people you deal with are informants, basically hackers that were caught then cried for a Secret Service interview so they can catch more hackers. This is standard practice during any carding forum crew takedown over the years.
In the drugs world they don't give a fuck about informants unless you're a in a cartel or something. They certainly don't care about small time either. Carding + hacking = millions gone from banks and bigtime investigations. Drugs (here) = small time second income.
And yes, those ID forgery guy's are well known to hang onto people's face pics and addresses in case anything happens. Albert Gonzalez (who was an informant but still worked on the side for himself) was busted through an ID vendor who kept his picture and info as "insurance.zip" on a USB drive. It's in all the documents, books, stories and legends about shadowcrew forum.
After you're done reading that, read the Cardersmarket and Darkmarket busts how the FBI pulled it off, how they had informants there running Darkmarket and how ID vendors again played a role keeping the information as a Secret Service backup plan should they ever get busted.
For all we know Operation Open Market which just happened was because one of the people listed as on the run as a fugitive is the informant. Master Splynter (FBI) listed himself as 'on the run' to preserve his fake criminal identity for awhile so did cumbajohnny aka Albert Gonzales in his legendary 'i'm on the run' post to shadowcrew inside circle he wrote from the SS headquarters
TL;DR:
Hacking, fraud, carding = they want informants.
Online drugs vending = they don't care, unless you have the goods on DPR. they aren't interested in buyers unless you're shipping precursors like 10 Kilo barrels of Ephedrine per week to a lab in the US
bulllllllllshit. Don't give a fuck about informants unless you are in a cartel or something? Do you really believe that or do you just say it to sleep at night. TONS AND TONS AND TONS of people are in prison due to informants, people who are no where near cartel level. DEA doesn't bother with informants? Please they are first and foremost a human intelligence agency, managing networks of informants and snitches is the primary thing that they do.
This is standard practice during any carding forum crew takedown over the years.
This is standard practice in any sort of organized crime investigation, it shows an extreme amount of naivety to think that they don't use informants regularly against the drug trade
really it amazes me how much you know about what the DEA cares about, exact figures even. why not put that info back in your ass where it came from. But you are largely right about the carder scene.