mtbc | Drug dealing in the open

The newsgroup scot.general has puzzled me for weeks in having become a forum for the illegal dealing of prescription drugs, largely by Gmail users. That change is not much of a loss as not much was being discussed there beforehand. Now, people exchange prices and telephone numbers and offer to meet face-to-face in various places in Scotland and generally advertise and effect their illicit activity in plain sight of the world.

At first I did not believe that this could possibly be what is really going on. Is such not easy for the police to monitor or infiltrate, even if the UK telephone numbers are via online chat services? However, as time has passed and discussions have even turned to seeking legal advice after the police have found one's drug-dealing text messages on one's cellphone, I increasingly come to think that it is not some strange ruse or social experiment, that indeed people conduct their illegal business in a surprisingly transparent way.

Another puzzling aspect is the followups to threads providing reviews of dealers, that customers were ripped off or received their drugs or whatever. I do not see how these reviews have any credibility as it is not as if they even get Verified Purchase certifications or the like; sockpuppets are a dime a dozen.