She’s busted as web drug queen
A drug dealer who was pushing pills and heroin on the dark web was busted, according to prosecutors who said she was trading in online currencies to hide her internet operation.
Joanna De Alba was indicted on charges of conspiring to distribute, and possession with intent to distribute, heroin and methamphetamine after she was detained while attempting to enter the U.S. at the Mexican border.
De Alba was scheduled to be arraigned Thursday before a U.S. magistrate judge in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Prosecutors said that between June 2018 and May 2019 De Alba allegedly advertised and sold illegal narcotics on the Wall Street Market, a global dark web marketplace, using the moniker RaptureReloaded.
Customers were directed to pay her in Bitcoin and contact her through encrypted email and messaging services.
De Alba, 39, offered customers free shipping to addresses in the U.S. under “stealth” delivery options including “Basic Stealth” “Better Stealth” and “Super Stealth 360,” according to the indictment.
Prosecutors said these options featured measures to conceal the external and internal packaging of illegal narcotics to evade detection by law enforcement — and to inform buyers if law enforcement had intercepted, tampered with or were monitoring the shipment.
“As alleged, De Alba dispensed heroin and methamphetamine from the shadowy corners of the internet, believing that it provided anonymity,” U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue said in a statement. “Thanks to the outstanding work by this office’s prosecutors and DEA special agents, a bright light has been shined on her activities, and she will now be held to account.”
De Alba is a U.S. citizen who was living in Tijuana, Mexico, officials said.
The online scheme was exposed with the help of an undercover Drug Enforcement Agency officer who accessed the Wall Street Market listing and used Bitcoin to make several purchases. Weeks later, the agent retrieved a package shipped by RaptureReloaded via the U.S. postal service to a mailbox in Queens.
The package contained heroin and methamphetamines, officials said.
Between August 2018 and January 2019, agents intercepted five packages containing methamphetamine pills and fentanyl that were shipped from the Netherlands and Canada and addressed to De Alba’s deceased husband at an apartment in southern California, officials said.
According to the indictment, since her husband’s death in March 2018, De Alba used his identity and credit cards to fund her narcotics business on the Wall Street Market.
De Alba faces a mandatory minimum term of five years’ imprisonment and a maximum sentence of up to 100 years in prison if convicted on the top charges.