This Happened in Italy

DROGA: VENDEVANO SEMI CANNABIS SU INTERNET, ARRESTATI
(AGI) - Roma, 28 lug. - La Polizia Postale di Napoli ha sgominato una vasta organizzazione che invitava alla coltivazione e alla vendita di cannabis indica attraverso i siti internet www.m.it, www.semini.it, creati e gestiti a Riva del Garda e a Milano. L'organizzazione operava su internet invogliando gli utenti dei suoi siti a comprare in rete semi di cannabis indica, a coltivare in serre o all'aperto piante ad alto contenuto di tetraidrocannabinolo, a produrre sostanze stupefacenti del tipo hashish e marijuana e ad assumerle nelle piu' fantasiose modalita' (fumandole ma anche mangiandole sotto forma di caramelle, condimenti e dolci). Venivano inoltre vendute on-line le attrezzature necessarie per le coltivazioni domestiche e venivano offerti in rete sia i manuali di apprendimento per la coltivazione delle piante di cannabis che le istruzioni per il confezionamento degli spinelli. L'operazione, realizzata grazie alla collaborazione fra il Servizio di Polizia Postale e delle Comunicazioni e il Servizio Centrale Operativo (SCO) della Direzione Centrale Anticrimine, e' il frutto di dieci mesi di indagini dal settembre 2004 al giugno 2005, durante le quali agenti sotto copertura si sono infiltrati come coltivatori di piante di cannabis nelle chat-line e nei forum di discussione dei siti internet illegali. Nel 2004 e 2005 si sono rilevati 17.000 accessi ai tre siti, inoltre, nel corso delle indagini che hanno permesso l'identificazione di 53 coltivatori, numerosissime sono state le perquisizioni effettuate con sequestri di consistenti quantita' di piante di cannabis, hashish e marijuana, di decine di personal computer e di conti correnti postali e bancari con ingenti somme ricavate dalla vendita della sostanza stupefacente e di svariati materiali collegati alla sua produzione e consumo. I particolari dell'operazione verranno resi noti nel corso di una conferenza stampa che si terra' alle ore 11.30 presso il Compartimento di Polizia Postale di Napoli in via delle repubbliche Marinare 495. (AGI) .
280858 LUG 05

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Translation:

Rome - The Napoli Postal Police has identified an organization which sold cannabis in internet through the semini.it and shop.m.it websites created and run between Riva del Garda and Milan. The organization worked through internet tempting the members to buy cannabis iindica seeds containing high quantities of tetrahydrocannabinol, to either grow outdoors or in greenhouses, finalized to the production of hashish and marijuana to be consumed in imaginative ways (smoking, but also eating in the form of sweets and candies). They also sold online the grow equipment and had available for download manuals on cannabis cultivation and how to roll joints rolleyesThe operation, implemented thanks to the Postal and Communciations Police together with the Central Operational Division of the Anti-Crime Department (this is a Federal Agency) is fruit of 10 months of investigation between September 2004 and June 2005, during which time undercover agents posing as growers infiltrated the forums.

Between 2004 and 2005 over 17,000 people accessed the three websites. Further, during the course of the investigation 53 growers of cannabis were identified, andin the course of numerous perquisitions large quantities of hashish and marijuana as well as numerous plants were sequestered, along with many personal computers and postal checking accounts containing large sums of money presumably from the sale of prohibited substances.

The details of the operation will be made public after the press conference to be held at 11:30 at the Postal Police Command in Naples

Nobody but the growers in Italy know just how mind-blowing this is. The website in question, with grow/headshop and seed shop is also THE largest and most used forum in Italy. I myself learned how to grow there. The website is under sequester...Suffice it to say that 90% of the national growers who use internet are (or were) to be found on that website. Its like busting Overgrow, yes, on a much much smaller scale, but still, it is a NATIONAL issue for the growers here.

I suddenly feel very uncomfortable, though I haven't been posting there for a few years. Time to really blend in with the ICMag crowd...things are seriously scary.

Whoa!...that is not good. Well I wish them all the best. I also hope that you are in the clear Blue. Would hate to see you get sucked up in this. What a terrible thing.

Wouldn't you feel just the opposite Blue. Instead of blending in, dosn't make you feel like getting the hell out. Do they have the same privacy laws? What's to stop other countries from doing the same? What prompted all of this? Did someone get caught doing something? yada yada yada

Mo,

Bet your glad your in your dormant phase Blue
Stay safe

Thats some serious police resources and effort, being wasted on fighting cannabis cultivation, in one of THE most crime ridden and corrupt countries in the developed world.
A right-wing media mogul as prime minister, has'nt he got more serious problems to deal with. Namely Italy being a very well used trafficking country, for hard drugs, bound for western europe.

Mo, this is a small country with an even smaller, but steadily growing, community of growers. We are ALL very visible on the National Boards. The forums in question were the very first cannabis forums to appear online here, and also became the largest forum. The problem is that each grower on a national forum over here stands out like a slash of white paint on a piece of black paper, and the better you grow, the more you post and are known, the more visible you are. I stopped posting on the Italian forums. I had a friend pop in here yesterday and send me a pm saying "come visit, people are asking about you" and it made me nervous.

It was bound to happen. Lots of kiddies on those boards, lots of posts requesting where can I score here and there...and the owner of the whole shebang doesn't even smoke...he didn't care very much about the security of his members, and frankly very few members were security conscious enough to question. Those who were left the site, like myself.

You want to know the irony of it all? I was back there looking through the other day as a guest...there was a cop who had become a member declaring himself a cop, had been a member for a couple of months, and from the nature of his threads he was fascinated with the absolute stupidity of the majority of the members on the boards in regard to laws and rights. He had a thread going on that topic...and people were actually getting into debates with him...I mean it wasn't a flame war...it was unreal! The motherfucker was playing a game of cat and mouse before bringing the axe down on 'em! Its just crazy!

Mo, in Italy we have the tightest privacy laws you can imagine.....something happened, it didn't come out of the blue, but I can so easily imagine some kid offering to sell through pm to some undercover cop....or flapping his lips a bit too much to the worng person. I bet they already had reason enough to proceed an hour after they'd joined up.

GMT...yes I am....and I think I'm going to become a bit more reserved about which country I live in in future posts. Thanks for your concern :smile:

**The operation, implemented thanks to the Postal and Communciations Police together with the Central Operational Division of the Anti-Crime Department (this is a Federal Agency) is fruit of 10 months of investigation between September 2004 and June 2005, during which time undercover agents posing as growers infiltrated the forums.**


:/

Just glad you are Ok Blue. You know I wouldn't want anything to happen to you.

Stay Safe Girl

Mo,

This pisses me off.....it pisses me off even more to find out my hometown busted this. In Naples we smoke hash and weed in the streets with no problems. Italy is very accepting when it comes to cannabis compared to other places. I compare Italy with the US a lot and find myself with a lot more freedom when I am home visiting my family. My brother was just there and was stopped with around 20grams of hash....they took his hash and let him go with a warning. That is how lax it is there and to hear this just pisses me off.

Spero che un giorno lo stato Italiano capira' che questa pianta puo aiutare la situazione economica che ci sta in Italia, sopratutto nel Sud e i posti di campagnia, dove soldi non ci sono....spero.

Everything's fine with me Mo, thanks, and I've received some reassuring phone calls from long-time national guru friends so I'm not overly worried for my own safety, just keeping my eyes open. I haven't posted on those forums in a few years...still, what a freakout!

I would miss you if you blended in to the point of invisibility, but by all means, safety first.

I don't think I could become invisible here if I tried hemi...I'm part of the neighborhood LOL! I can be quite invisible to anybody visiting from national forums in virtue of my English, just have to stop referring to my country of residence and I'm just another European on the boards :wink: Thanks for the nice thought :smile:

many, many, many good thoughts for you BV.... so disturbing, with all the evil they waste vital reasorces on such a positive factor

**I'm part of the neighborhood LOL!**

Thanks guys... Fortunately I have access to some privileged information and have been sending some pms to people who can find out directly what happened from the admin of the three sites (wonder why he's not answering the phone? ). Nobody knows what the charges are yet, and what, if anything is still going on. Until we (the almost entirety of italian growers who use internet) have that information we won't know whether or not we should be worried and just how worried. One thing is for sure, they have the server, which means they have IPs.

General consensus among those in the know is that they've done what they wanted to do and the investigation is over with, given the fact that they released the info to the media and no longer have the element of surpise.

Thanks for the support :smile: Zep, it is very disturbing, and there must have been some very serious motives for this to happen, maybe a parallel dealing op is the theory going round on the boards. 10 months of investigation and infiltrated agents is alot of taxpayers money to spend and to my knowledge this is the first time they actually sequester a cannabis forum server. Must be some very serious shit. Will have to wait and see...

I've had the pleasure of smoking some very good hash while in Italy, particularly in Pisa and Naples. Though it was a "few" years ago I found that while in Naples, smoking could be done in the streets with NO hassles from anybody. (unless of course you were stupid about it) What happened??...I was under the impression Italy was one of the more cannabis friendly countries!!??
What a Bummer!! Ciao!
Pax,
Willie

'Tis not Willie....trust me...'tis not....we're just hoping it doesn't get worse, there's some fascist bastards in the government trying to pass a law that'll put Italy back in the stone age cannabis wise.

Blue, that's a shame....Freakin fascists are everywhere. I am really disappointed to hear this...Some of my many good memories of Italy include the feeling of 'freedom' while tokin up.
Is it still much harder to get weed than hash over there? Hash was everywhere, weed not.
But, no complaints.
Peace,
Willie

still the same Willy ...hash everywhere but now some weed to be found too, though terribly expensive, hard to come by, and of beaster to mediocre quality...the commercial growers here are still few...and with the server that just went down I think weed on the market here will become a rare thing indeed. People are going to start becoming alot more private about what they do, and frankly, they should have started sooner. It was like a free for all in stoner kindergarten on those forums and shit was just waiting to happen. Now it did and its going to affect eveybody in one way or another. I'm off to bury my stash....

sorry to hear, blue...

stay safe.