Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
Cybercrime King's Final Words Before Prison
Thu, 12 Dec 2024
Colby Kopp was a dark web dealer, he breaks down what lead to his rise and eventual fall of his empire. Follow me on all socials! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattcoxtruecrime Do you want to be a guest? Send me an email here: [email protected] Do you want a custom "con man" painting to shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to my Patreon: https: //www.patreon.com/insidetruecrime Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8 Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438 The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402 Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1 Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel! Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here: Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69 Cashapp: $coxcon69
Chapter 1: What led Colby Kopp to the dark web?
I mean, by the time this comes out, you'll have been sentenced.
I don't know currently as of right now, but it won't be that much longer. I hop on. We have like $21,000 in sales. So we went from like 500... to then 21,000 just like that. There are services on the dark net that you could go to where you exchange that piece of gold. Well, it turns out the FBI also had control of that service too. And they were catching a lot of people trying to wash their money.
Have you considered selling stuff on Etsy? Like maybe stuff that's not banned by the federal government?
every law enforcement agency in the world, and you have the most advanced units in those agencies after you. You have every single hacker in the world trying to demand ransom from you, trying to hack you. You have other markets competing with you who are also very technically advanced people that will try to mess up your website just to drive traffic to their website.
Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I'm going to be doing an interview with Colby Copp. He was actually indicted and is awaiting – actually, by the time this video comes out, he'll have been sentenced and either be waiting to turn himself in or on his way – on a bus on his way to – uh, to a short vacation. And so he, he was indicted for, how can I put this?
Uh, he was a, a dark market or what a dark web, um, counterfeit pill dealer. Let's put it that way. So it's going to be an interesting story. Every time I've talked to him, I've unfortunately, I know I'm not supposed to laugh about it, but I've laughed about it. And it's an interesting story. So check this out. Why are you laughing about my story so much?
Because you're always, you know, you're telling me what, when you tell me what happened, you were laughing and you were like, not laughing in a bad way, but you're, you're, you're, you're like me. Like, I mean, you know, like, I'm going to laugh at pretty much anything just because it's just how I get through the day or how I get through anything.
I try and I find the humor and pretty much everything. Otherwise you're walking around crying all the time, you know? And right. So I'm just going to try and see the humor and everything.
You got to stay calm. That's the thing I'm learning going through this process. You got to, your mental health is paramount because you'll go crazy.
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Chapter 2: How did Colby start selling counterfeit drugs?
Well, really up till recently, too, I know. But go ahead. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt.
No, no, that's okay. That's okay. Your show. So I meet a friend, Dan, after a while, and I start selling him weed. And he's like, you know... My dad sells a lot of Coke. And I'm like, Coke? I can't deal with that. It's crazy. What are you talking, cocaine? And he's like, hold on now. He's like, just go on there and show me. You know, eventually, of course, me being an idiot, I go on there.
I order some cocaine. I get it in the mail. I didn't know it at the time, but this was literally like cocaine around here. On the East Coast, it's what's called stepped on, meaning people have added adulterants to it and they dilute it in order to make more money. The cocaine that I ordered was basically pure in an American context.
It was only stepped on one time, and that was from whatever Mexican person I purchased it from. Right. So he takes this to his dad, who is a large cocaine dealer, and he's working for a biker gang locally. And I knew of the dad. He was actually one of my neighbors when I was growing up. I was in high school literally with his kid, right?
The kid that I'm talking about, the kid that I'm selling weed with, right? So... We take the cocaine to his dad. And he looked at the cocaine. He's like, how much can you get? And I'm like, well, really, how much do you want? And he's like, you can get consistent drugs off the internet. And I'm like, yeah. He literally looked me in the eyes. And he's like, if you do that, I can make you rich.
And I'm like, really? That sounds great. I would like to be rich. I would love to be rich. And of course, me being a stupid 19-year-old, I keep indulging. And I keep going down. I keep...
accelerating if you will because before it was just a little bit of weed or some magic mushrooms or something that's harmless but now it's cocaine can it get any worse well so you know remember how i said that this this this gentleman was a was a was a pretty decently sized local cocaine dealer right and he was working with bikers Well, it turned out the leader of that biker gang was insane.
And he one day was driving around, was insane because he was on a bunch of drugs. And there was an elderly couple that was driving poorly around him. So instead of just honking his horn like a normal person, he proceeds to point a MAC-10 at them and started saying he's going to kill them. So he gets busted, and the cops know he's the leader of a gang. They open his trunk, and what do you know?
There's tons of Xanax, there's tons of cocaine, and he had an illegal firearm on him. So automatically, the feds are coming in because of the amount of drugs he had. And it turns out the DEA was already investigating this biker gang, and they started indicting tons of people, right? So my friend's dad, he did not have any charges. They weren't able to get him, right?
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Chapter 3: What challenges did he face while running his operation?
And then there are the markets where people go and transact. But there's an independent forum. At the time, it was called DREAD. That was the name of the forum. And there's very, it's like Reddit, except it's an exact copy of Reddit. It's just called Dread. So it's a separate service that a person who's called Hugbunter has control over, right? And he's like the main man on the web.
Like if you wanna advertise something, you go to this website and you go to the sub forum. In my case, it was the opioid forum. And I had to talk to the admin And I'm like, listen, I'm a brand new opioid dealer and I would like to give away some products in exchange for reviews. And then eventually I could get what's called a vendor flare. Think of that like a blue checkmark on Twitter.
Like people get to know like this is a real certified person.
Right.
So he's like, listen, get your first ten legitimate sales after your free giveaway. So when people review the free stuff you give away, I'm not going to count that as a sale. But after your ten organic sales, I'll give you a vendor flair, and that will lend you a lot more credibility. So I'm like, okay, this is going to be a process. So we give away about 1000 pills over a month period, right?
There was hundreds of people that left reviews, right? So I have a name buzzing around me. Obviously, that's going to drum up some organic traffic. And what I mean organic is you're just listed on there and people search you up. People actively look for you, right? So at that time, we're only making like $300, $400, $500 a day with the organic traffic, right?
but then- Is that profit or just sales? Just sales, period. Okay.
I mean, it only costs us about 50 cents to make each pill, but still like $500 is still $500, no matter the profit margin, right? So then eventually we get the 10 organic sales, right? When the people clear the escrow, right? So dark net markets, you don't get paid right away. The dark net market holds the money
for the buyer right i have to send the buyer the drugs they open it up they're like this is good and then they go onto their account and release my money for me right right it sounds like a sketchy system but it works like 90 sounds better for you know it sounds better for the for for the customer for you know
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Chapter 4: What happened when the Empire Market collapsed?
But at the end of the day, there's always a serial number on it and it's traceable. And ultimately that led to my capture. But I can expound on that at the end of the story, because it'll make a lot more sense, right?
so basically since bitcoin is is traceable because every bitcoin goes on this thing called the blockchain think of the blockchain as an immutable ledger in which every transaction is publicly broadcasted and there are um
mathematical proofs that are done in order to to literally prove that this is a real transaction in a mathematical cryptographic sense right right basically it's traceable if someone really wants to find you there is a giant company called cypher trace that's worth 10 billion dollars that the government employs literally to trace cryptocurrency and link it to criminals right okay
So basically, the reason that White House market wants to use this new coin called Monero is because Monero uses a different protocol, meaning a different means of transacting and a different means of dispersing the monies, if you will, dispersing the cryptocurrency. So it is not traceable.
To this day, the government is offering, I think, like a $750,000 bounty to the programmer that can figure out how to trace Monero transactions. But I don't really think they have a good grasp on it at all. They don't know. Okay. So obviously, remember, I'm still a certified vendor, right? So White House market gives me a free account, right? I go on there for a little bit.
Remember how I said I have my ancillary service? Right. At this point, I am completely fed up with dark debt markets. Right. I think they're out there just to screw me over because ultimately they're criminals as just as much as I am. They just are out there to make money. They're just doing it in a far more sophisticated way. Right.
So I start siphoning as many customers as possible into my own ancillary service. Now, the admin team on White House market was much more with it than on Empire market. So they found out I was doing this and they banned my account on their service. Right. OK, so I'm sitting here. That's a terrible look to be banned. People automatically assume you're a scammer.
But then I went to the forum and I explained I am sick and tired of dark net markets screwing me over. I was just siphoning customers to my own service. I wasn't misleading any of my customers. I was still giving everybody the product they purchased. If anything, I was scamming the dark net market. That's why they got pissed and they banned me. Right.
Well, at this around this time, there was another darknet market that was a competitor. So sometimes in the darknet market ecosystem, usually there's just one big market. But other times there's like two, maybe even three big viable markets that you can transact on. Right. At the time, there was three. White House market, dark market, and deep sea market. Deep sea market, it smelled fishy.
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Chapter 5: How did Colby transition to Icarus Market?
In reality, I got caught piloting an airplane. And I'm like,
like illegally like in US airspace and I'm like yeah I'm like that's not that bad you know what I mean he's like well they found 20 000 kilos of cocaine in the airplane I'm like oh and then I realized the gravity of the situation I'm in I'm like if I'm in a cell with this dude awaiting an arraignment I got myself into some serious serious trouble
I'm sure you have that one defining moment as well when you first got apprehended, when you realized the gravity of the situation you're in.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's an issue. And I didn't get to turn myself in. Yeah. Really? Oh, they just arrested you? Arrested me. They just fucking pulled up on me, pulled the guns out. Get on the ground. Get on the ground. Get on the ground. I was like, ah. Was it like the FBI or the Secret Service? It was the Secret Service.
Okay.
Which were actually extremely, you know, like in retrospect, in comparison to the FBI, they were extremely professional. Most of the FBI agents, with the exception of maybe one FBI agent, have been almost like thugs. All the Secret Service agents were polite professional you know they it's like they were just I was like the guys and you'll realize it's like the guards that you meet.
You always like the guards that are basically there to just check in and check out like i'm just here to do my job like i'm not taking it personally, you have to do this don't do that like. you know, they, they don't, they're not upset about, they're not, they're not taking a personal interest. And same thing with the police. You have some cops that are just like, Hey, look, I got a handcuff yet.
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Chapter 6: What were the consequences of his actions?
You know what I mean? There's a few, but mostly that's it. Mostly you're going to meet guys that brought a gun to a $10 crack sale and and ended up getting 10 or 15 years. And you're going to be surrounded by, you're going to be surrounded by guys that you're like, so this guy stole, you know, $500 million and he got, you know, eight years.
And this guy has been arrested three times and happened to bring a gun to a crack deal for less than $100 and got 20 years. Wow, that's insane. The disparity between the sentences are so outrageous. And then you'll be like, this guy looked at some little kids on the internet. He gets two years. Yeah, he got three years.
This guy, there's just no... But you'll meet some guys there that you're like, this guy's a complete lunatic, and he's insane, and he should never be let out, and he's getting out next year. And then you've got this guy who's the nicest, most helpful person ever, and he's got 30 more years to go.
Yeah, you'll meet some great guys, and you're going to get in good with a group of guys that you like, and you hang out when you get a routine, and, bro, that time's going to blow by. It'll be cool, but it'll be good. I mean, it won't be great. But once your expectations are lowered, which sounds horrible,
you'll be you'll be like oh i'm i'm okay here like there will be a day you'll just wake up after you know whatever it could be six months could be a year and a half and you're gonna be like yeah i'm all right this is gonna be all right it's not a this isn't horrible like it's that first but it's until that point when you're like this sucks um so what happened so sorry go ahead the point i was trying to make is you take someone like me who messed up right
But then you're going to put me around. You're sending all of the people who have gotten who did all these things and you're putting them together and you think they're not going to be sitting there networking, networking, excuse me, scheming, learning new things. Oh, yes.
Great conversations. Like you'll get around a group of guys and once you guys start talking, you'll be like, oh my God, well, wait a second. Here's what I did. And then that guy will be like, did you ever think about doing this? You're like, oh my God. You can get fake IDs? Yeah, I can get fake.
Oh my, if I could have done that, I could have, you know, they're like, what about, can you open up bank accounts? Yeah, bro, I opened up 15 bank accounts. And you're like, oh, your mind will go nuts. And then you kind of have to talk yourself down. We lay in bed thinking, and then I think, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
So I have to throw a surprise into this story, right? Okay. Remember how I said there was the worker, Eric Callahan? Yes. He was an undercover federal agent the entire time.
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Chapter 7: What lessons did he learn from his experiences?
terrible it's so terrible being near someone and seeing them even though he killed somebody though but it's like the humanity of it looking at this 20 this dude who's one year older than me it's like you're gonna spend the rest of your life in jail it's just it's sad man and i um a brief a brief point before i explain everything else when we're driving back he literally looked at everybody in the van he's like crime isn't cool man and just sunk his head and i was like that's terrible that you realize that now you know
So back to like when I'm having my bond hearing, they bring me in front of an actual federal judge, like a circuit judge. And the U.S. district attorney is there. And this is the first time I see face to face the FBI agent in my case. He was the CIA. I'm not going to name his name, of course. I don't know if that can blow back on me. But he's sitting there explaining, reading the ad.
This is the first time I got to see the affidavit in my case, too. And I'm like, oh, my God, Eric Callahan was an undercover this entire.
I thought Eric was going to walk in and be like, Hey, what's up Colby? Hands you your indictment. You're like, well, he did.
He did. I never, I never shared my name with him, but essentially Eric Callahan didn't say, come in and say, what's up Colby. Cause he was the undercover CI. So essentially he did do that. Was that shocking? Um,
looking back at it i'm like that just makes so much sense i mean of course like it is shocking but like in again hindsight is always 20 20 with crime sitting there thinking back i'm like of course he was a ci with the questions he was asking and every single day right i had him remember how i said i had eric callahan set up my own proprietary means of transacting yeah
he just also happened to work at a print shop while he was doing this and was able to print up flyers for me to send them out to my, I had him, I was going to have him mail me the flyers and I could include them in all of my orders on White House Market. Instead of using the internet to say, hey, this is my store.
I was just going to be like, I was literally going to stick a flyer in their package and like, look at my store. And this code, this code, Huh?
Eric's a good guy to know. He's connected. He's just being a good business partner.
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