Dark Net Vendor “RaptureReloaded” Has Been Sentenced to Prison
After pleading guilty to a number of narcotics crimes, Joanna De Alba, a 40-year-old who expressly defined the US Attorney’s Office as a “U.S. citizen,” will serve 96 months in jail.
On the dark net, the defendant was active as a vendor on Wallstreet Market, the defendant acknowledged to the following drugs: heroin, MDMA, cocaine, methamphetamine, and oxycodone.
De Alba, who used the pseudonym “RaptureReloaded” on his account, made 600 transactions between 2018 and 2019.
De Alba was the subject of an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2018.
In late 2018 and early 2019, investigators acquired heroin and methamphetamine through RaptureReloaded. Investigators traced the mailing labels to a third-party postal business after receiving their purchases.
Many of the arrested darkweb sellers on our site have made this error.
De Alba used credit cards to pay for shipping labels, despite the fact that a number of postage businesses accept cryptocurrencies.
According to court records, she paid for mail with cards in her name and cards in the name of her late spouse.
De Alba had at least five accounts with the post office, all of which were paid for with credit cards.
The email addresses raptureroom@protonmail.com and rapturereloaded@protonmail.com were registered in her late husband’s name and used to order the shipping labels.
The defendant had registered the other accounts using her phone number and email address.
Investigators discovered De Alba’s Facebook account using the information supplied by the postage service, where they learnt that her spouse died in March 2018.
Investigators also discovered five heroin and methamphetamine parcels sent to her late husband’s house in California from the Netherlands and Canada.
Prosecutors said the shipments were seized between August 2018 and January 2019.
This, they said, demonstrated De Alba’s efforts to “act anonymously and conceal her identity.”
On October 24, 2019, the defendant was apprehended at the US-Mexico border as she sought to enter the country.
She was charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with the purpose to distribute heroin and methamphetamine, as well as heroin and methamphetamine distribution.
In almost 600 orders, De Alba supplied over 840 grams of heroin, 190 grams of methamphetamine, 1,250 MDMA tablets, and 750 fentanyl-laced oxycodone pills.
During the drug trafficking operation, she made about 16.32 Bitcoin and 400 Monero.
De Alba pled guilty in April 2021 and was sentenced to eight years in prison by US District Judge Dora L. Irizarry on November 3, 2021.
Following the announcement of De Alba’s sentence,
Breon Peace, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said:
“The prison sentence imposed on De Alba today demonstrates that her clandestine use of the dark web to distribute a potentially lethal array of powerful drugs like fentanyl, heroin, and oxycodone in exchange for cryptocurrency was a failure. This investigation and vigorous prosecution show that we will not allow the dark web to be a haven for drug traffickers.”
