Can't the police pretend to be vendors to catch people? : OpSec | Torhoo darknet markets

Their main interest is to bust people that sell, not the ones buying.
Anyway in most countries they can't do it, because pretending to be a vendor means trying to make people doing illegal stuff, that is illegal itself.

Technically this is called entrapment and cases have been thrown out of court because of it. However, that relies on proving there was entrapment.

Short answer: only in shithole countries.

In some places it's called entrapment.

This is how I see it, it would not be worth the effort to them, but it is a valid question tho as police do get involved in controlled sale of drugs operations, street sales and arrest buyers for possession once the sale is made, they do this to deter future buyers, from that area.

Now to become a vendor they would need to go through the process of paying the bond, setting up an account, putting up listings and just wait for buyers to make a purchase. Once they're set up they will need to deliver drugs to regular buyers, it better be good drugs too, until they get that one bulk buyer to arrest because if they arrest every buyer their vendor reputation will deter those bulk buyers they're after.

They would need to do all that without doing promotions or advertising as it would be cause for entrapment.

I asked the same thing prior. Can the police sell you actual drugs? Not sure, but a friend of mine ordered from a vendor who is still around. Some Changa it was. When it arrived it was not changa, but instead a few marijuana items (that are legal in that state) So essentially he ordered something illegal and got sent a box of legal goods... I thought that was really weird, the vendor himself did not care at all that it happened. Wouldnt you be concerned?

They would be more likely
to flip someone
and then use them
as an informant

Does not seem to be a thing but have seen some sketchy looking new vendors offering free samples or prices too good to be true and would not be surprised if they were building a list of buyers to keep tabs on or to somehow use to go after sellers. Can collect a bunch of names and shipping info then disappear and never ship so no problems with having to ship actual drugs.

I don't see why they couldn't. Fucking Feds are always "foiling their own plots" eg recruiting people for bombings, kidnappings; posing as horny teenagers to bust pervs, etc. The FBI is a rogue agency (or a complicit one depending on who's in power).

More likely they make vendors informants or spy on the vendors and observe every order. Because they can. This is far superior to actually being vendors. They can probably manipulate people who work on the inside to do exactly what they want anyway. Best of both worlds for the authorities. And it wouldn't exactly be "police," it would be feds or equivalent.

They already have mountains of customer addresses and order info from all the dark markets they have taken down and customers that didnt pgp. Unless you were buying bulk blow and fent I dont think they would give a damn anyway. If you do sell bulk coke i would be more worried about getting shot than busted, at least in Canada.

Yes, the LEs of course do just that. The HUMINT related operations are the basis for every intelligence agency and LEs anywhere in the world and it eats up significant portion of their budget.

They can run the whole DNMs or start and run a secret secure phone like ANOM or Encrochat and other stuff.

Also many criminal lords are actually just agents of the intelligence agencies directly. And they let them do their shit in exchange for the intelligence and black budget.

Adapt accordingly.