A former German international has been handed a 3-year jail sentence for drug trafficking via the dark web. 62-year-old Walter Kelsch was convicted of helping his son, Nicholas, in and participating in drug trafficking, which took place in an online dark web marketplace.
He and his son were sentenced at the Landau court for their role in helping one of the country’s biggest drug trafficking vendors run illegal online drug stores.
Kelsch was found guilty of aiding his son who is a high-ranking member of the trafficking gang that imports drugs from Holland. In addition to that, he was also found guilty of selling as well as shipping them.
Cocaine, hash, LSD, and ecstasy were all sold by Welsh and his son in the “chemical love” section of the dark web marketplace.
Nicholas, Kelsch’s son received a 14-year-prison sentence.
According to reports, the prosecution had called for a four-and-a-half year prison sentence while the defense had pleaded for acquittal.
The court however considered Kelsch’s crime punishable by three years in prison.
Kelsch made four appearances for West Germany from 1979-1980, scoring three goals in the process.
Kelsch spent the most of his playing career in Germany, making 246 appearances in the Bundesliga and netting 54 times during his time with Stuttgart and now fifth-tier Homburg.
He also scored 22 goals in his combined 98 appearances in the Bundesliga 2 Sud and the Deutscher Pokal.
Kelsch spent a short period of time in France with RC Strasbourg during the 1987/88 season, scoring 20 times in 78 appearances for the team.
He finally hanged his boots after a year with for Apollon Smyrnis in Greece, in the summer of 1989.
Dark web drug markets in Europe are still growing rapidly, despite the closing of some major markets, according to a report by two European agencies.
This report analyzes the drug trade in Europe on the dark web, and it’s the first of its kind. The results showed that online dark web marketplaces are becoming more sophisticated with the number of illegal products available for buyers also increasing immensely.
Ron Wainwright, Europol head speaking on this report stated that: “Despite this positive achievement (closing AlphaBay and Hansa), those involved in the online drug trade appear to be resilient to such disruption and able to reorganize rapidly.”
The report also reveals that drugs worth over 170 million euros were sold over the dark web worldwide from 2011 to 2015, including almost 80 million euros in Europe.
Further information from the report states that two thirds of all dark web dealings involve drugs, even though there are rampant sales of guns, explosives, and computer hacking tools. The biggest markets were found to be Germany, Britain and the Netherlands.
Germany over the years has been flooded with dark web drugs. The number of people getting involved with this illicit websites is also increasing every day. Many arrests have been made so far in efforts to curb this situation and this year hasn’t been an exception.
In October, an ex-politician of the German Green Party, Boris J., was arrested by the German law enforcement authorities for allegedly conducting a narcotics trafficking operation on the dark web.
According to the police, the former politician of the Green Party allegedly had been selling drugs to thousands of customers on dark web marketplaces since October 2013.
A police officer stated that it was unknown where 40-year-old Boris J. got his drugs and if there were other people in bed with him with his illicit trade.
His Kopernikusstrasse apartment along with five other locations was searched by investigators. The police uncovered evidence for 6,500 single sales on the dark web, including more than 34,000 ecstasy pills and approximately 7,000 LSD blotters.
Boris J. came under investigations when the German State Criminal Office examined the addresses on darknet drug shipments and then discovered a hint. The investigators found that Boris J, was entangled with a variety of narcotic packages.
The hint then took law enforcement authorities Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, where Boris J. was identified by the police as the suspect in the case.
Another arrest was also made in the early days of September when three dark web drug vendors and three of their customers were caught. A huge amount of narcotics from the suspects were seized by law enforcement which had an estimated value of one million euros.