even though the metropolis I live in has a greater than one million population, it seems like alot of the circles for harder drugs are suprisingly small, and alot of the people in the scene, if they don't know each other outright, they are only seperated by one mutual friend, etc, etc.
the thing about it is, that's kind of spooky, is that there are people who I haven't ever met, or necessarily heard of, but I can be almost 100 percent certain that they are involved with dope because they show up on enough people's friends lists on facebook.
The even crazier thing about it is that they use their exact legal name. I can check the inmate rosters at various local county jails for felony drug cases, and pop those names into facebook, and voila, their profiles pop up, and they are friends with a bunch of people I have heard of.
I'm pretty good at ferreting out hidden information, but the thing is, is I don't think that cops are so dumb that they couldn't be doing the same thing I am. And if you're involved with illegal activities to any significant degree, you're doing something wrong if it's obvious to a lurker on the internet. this is mostly a phenomena with meth people...idk why...
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The average facebook user is an idiot with absolutely no security sense. I use a fake name etc and have my privacy settings as high as is possible but I still wouldn't post anything sensitive on it or even use it if I was conducting any other business. People who know my real name and email address find it difficult to find me but I know it's still possible to be tracked even whilst taking precautions.
I don't think the police bother checking it, there is too much bullsh*t on it to bother trawling. Most of the ones that obsess over weed etc publicly on FB are bottom feeders and there is no point chasing them. Having said that if the police need additional evidence for a conviction they will check social media for verification. It's not good evidence but can be confirmation of some points.
I used to vet applicants for certain forums and it was scary how easy it was to trace people right to their front door. They are a huge liability and should not be associated with. I've seen idiots use facebook accounts to sell drugs and even I was able to work out who it was.
For the average punter it's stupid but harmless. For anyone with any serious activity, they simply shouldn't have a facebook account, end of. It permanently stores all your information and that is just a stockpile of evidence.
If the police could be bothered to invest the time and resources to it they could easily hone in on a particular scene and gather the initial evidence to begin tracking down the major players. But even the large players in that circle would be small fish. Any large scale players, especially those working online would have more sense than to leave themselves open. The idiots you see are bottom feeders.
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