The Situation Around the Three Heads: Facts and a Bit of Wild Theory
@KladovkaPavlu — April 6, 2022
Hello, friends! As you may have noticed, I’ve been covering the situation around the marketplace for the second day now, trying to stay unbiased. Let me say right away: what’s written below is not my personal opinion, but is about 90% the work of some of my followers, who have flooded me with their investigations and wild theories. Some of them seemed worth sharing, so here they are. I’m just putting it all together for you, because this story is a hundred times more interesting than the shutdown of RAMP.
Observations from Dxrk
This is a summary of my conversation with a subscriber who showed the most interest in the topic. Here are the conclusions from our discussion:
- Pavlov started working at Yandex in 2008 and is still there;
- LegalRC was launched the same year, though that’s not certain. I personally only learned about it in 2009-2010, but it was already well-developed. Most likely, it started in 2008.
Strange Findings During the Search
Above is a screenshot showing that legalrc.biz was hosted on Proservice Ltd servers. Let’s move on.
Looking at the Website
It’s just a placeholder site, a landing page you can’t even find on Google with various queries. It seems to be some kind of “for insiders” service where you can leave your email and they’ll contact you. I’ve been in IT for over 10 years, but no one’s heard of them.
Thanks to subscriber Batyushka for this tip.
The listed contact phone number is very odd. If you enter it into WhatsApp, you’ll see a user with the nickname Hy. (dra)? Keep in mind, all this info is right on the surface — this isn’t some mind-blowing investigation, more like picking up rotten apples from the ground that someone shined a spotlight on.
Here’s the contact. The time is underlined, but we’ll get back to that later.
Next, I suggest just looking at these messages and conclusions, since it’s much clearer for finding connections:
- The stamp is from the 5th, the document was found on the night/morning of the 6th;
- The page was changed today at 8:26 AM (maybe the contact phone was changed);
- The contact was online 10 minutes before the page was changed. Maybe a stretch, but…
- Not only the phone was changed 🙂
Possible Outcomes and Conclusions
- Pavlov is just a scapegoat and an outsourced employee who really didn’t know anything, but the combination of facts makes this doubtful;
- Pavlov and the others, as often happens, didn’t expect the project to grow so much and did everything haphazardly, leaving security holes, knowing that as long as the project didn’t go international, local law enforcement would never get to it;
- The ambitious Eternos project might have attracted the attention of foreign agencies, which is why it never happened. Honestly, the idea was genius, but the planned scale was scary;
- This could all be a well-executed exit scam, where the team sacrificed some servers, some funds, and one key figure who wasn’t really part of the project, and made a clean getaway;
- Or it’s a real platform takedown and compromise of all internal data, the admin team fled, and Pavlov was offered up as a sacrifice to US agencies;
- What’s your theory?
I’m not claiming anything, just summarizing today’s conversations with some of my darknet researcher readers. We’re watching the situation with curiosity, since this is a historic moment. If the platform comes back, that’ll be even more historic.
A Dose of Wild Theory and Conspiracy (Bonus)
Subscriber withinhell reached out and shared some very unusual thoughts. This is about the musician DJ Bes.
This caught my attention because I first heard about him from a girl who was involved with marketplaces and shops, but is now in prison. Hi, Yulenka… Later, I heard about him from another guy involved in all this, but didn’t think much of it. What kind of DJ, seriously… It sounds like a joke and total craziness, but some facts are interesting.
Here’s a direct quote with explanations:
In 2015, the 37th episode of the “Neuropunk” podcast came out, where DJ Bes tells a mini-story about destroying a “trap and dubstep fan station” (RAMP?), and hijacking a spaceship called ?G/H?ydra, adding, “Ironically, this ship has only three plasma cannons” (referencing the site’s icon).
I thought that was interesting, but what he wrote next…
Find it yourself if you’re into wild theories.
Okay, let’s suppose.
Okay, let’s suppose.
The last phrase… actually works.
One last note: withinhell has talked to me before, he writes very well and has shared a lot of interesting thoughts, including his overall view of the situation. He’s a smart and observant guy, and he admits this theory is pure craziness. But it’s out there 🙂
UPD: Another Subscriber Joined Our “SHUE” Club
In Conclusion
I’ll wrap up here and not go too deep. The last thing I’ll say is: do you know who started all this mess? Our beloved Chatex. I’m not the only one who thinks so, and it makes sense.
Why them? Simple: this service laundered money for the platform and for some reason got involved in international projects, launched its own DAO token, NFTs, started negotiating with exchanges, and attracted a ton of attention from regulators, including OFAC. That was a really dumb move, considering they were getting their audience from darknet channels, including all of mine.
After Chainanalysis checked the transactions, it became clear it was a laundering operation, and they started taking everyone down the chain: Chatex, Suex, other exchanges from Federation Tower, and now the big fish — Hydra and its pet Garantex?
P.S. Why doesn’t BTC Banker launch its own tokens or get on exchanges? They clearly could. You know the answer.
We won’t continue this quasi-investigation, since we’re not trying to make life easier for law enforcement, and they obviously already know all this. All the data comes from open sources, literally handed to us. Whether it was left out in the open or by mistake, who knows. I’ll keep covering major events, but only as digests on the channel, not in real-time.
Pavluu & Dxrk & Withinhell