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Guy who bought 2,700 tabs of ‘LSD substitute’ on Silk Road faces 25 years in prison

That's a lot of LSD.

 

Patrick Howell O'Neill

Internet Culture

Posted on Mar 12, 2014   Updated on May 31, 2021, 3:39 pm CDT

A lot of people probably felt pretty accomplished the first time they ordered a few tabs of LSD from Silk Road.

Try 2,700.

Luke James Hanley, a 20-year-old from Daisy Hill in Australia, faces 25 years in jail after ordering a whopping 2,700 tabs of what Australian media are calling an “LSD substitute.” Hanley ordered the drugs from Silk Road a few months before it was closed down by the FBI late last year.

The reports aren’t clear on exactly which drug Hanley purchased, though a family of synthetic psychedelics called 2C is extremely popular on Deep Web black markets like Silk Road.

The drugs, valued by police at $20,000 on the street, were sent along with five grams of amphetamines to his real home under a fake name, a classic mistake that newbie drug dealers tend to make on Deep Web black markets. Hanley probably thought the name protected him but it often just manages to attract unwanted attention from the postal service.

Hanley’s father has been incarcerated for the past five years over robbery charges, and the his big drug purchase was apparently a cause for bonding. The two texted over Hanley bringing pills to his father in prison.

Hanley was found guilty and is awaiting sentencing on Friday.

“It’s been a huge wake-up call,” Hanley’s mother told the court. “He’s extremely frightened.”

H/T Herald Sun | Photo via Victor/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

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*First Published: Mar 12, 2014, 7:22 pm CDT