John Marsh 
Updated August 3rd, 2019
Sam Bent aka 2happytimes2, of St. Johnsbury, was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in Burlington. He pleaded guilty in March to conspiring to distribute drugs in deals arranged via the dark web and paid for with Bitcoin. The drugs were mailed from post offices in Vermont and northern New Hampshire.
Court records do not reveal the amounts of the drugs involved.
U.S. Attorney for Vermont Christina Nolan, the top federal prosecutor in the state, said Wednesday that criminal activity on the dark web is a growing problem across the country, and in Vermont.
“Certainly, it’s here,” Nolan said. “I think the biggest challenge that it poses for us here is that individuals are purchasing drugs wholesale, particularly fentanyl, which they are ordering on the dark web, and it’s being shipped directly to Vermont.”
Fentanyl is a potent synthetic opioid. The number of deaths linked to fentanyl in Vermont increased from 51 in 2016 to 68 in 2017, according to Vermont Department of Health statistics.
The dark web is a term referring to parts of the internet accessed through encrypted means, according to Phil Susmann, president of Norwich University Applied Research Institutes.
“What the dark web gives users is some level of anonymity or protection,” he said Wednesday.
The anonymity associated with the dark web has led to marketplaces of illegal activities to form there, from drug traffickers, to those seeking to exchange stolen credit card information, to others involved in the trading of child pornography, he said.
Susmann estimated that only a small percentage of the internet users, in the low single digits, ever go on the dark web.
The dark web also has non-nefarious purposes, Susmann said, such as allowing people in certain countries an anonymous outlet to speak out against human right abuses.
He said that part of the problem in enforcement of illegal activities on the dark web is the amount of effort and resources that can go into investigating one case due to information traveling through a maze of encryption and likely crossing many jurisdictions and borders..
Nolan said Wednesday that federal authorities are getting “smarter and smarter” about the techniques they use to investigate cases on the dark web.
Susmann, however, cautioned that just as investigators are developing those new techniques to probe crime on the dark web, those engaged in illicit activities are working just as hard to come up with ways to defeat those enforcement measures.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Drescher, who prosecuted both cases, argued in court and in filings, that the dark web drug activities brought to light in the case reveal a new frontier in the narcotics trafficking world.
“(Sam) Bent’s operation represents the new drug dealing paradigm,” Drescher wrote in a motion seeking a nine-year prison term for him.
“His methods were secure, discreet, and difficult to detect,” the prosecutor added. “His methods — selling to customers hundreds and thousands of miles away — insured he distanced himself from the societal costs of his operation.”
The prosecutor described Sam Bent’s operation as “sophisticated,” involving hundreds of drug transactions to customers he never met.
Stephanie Greenlees, Sam Bent’s attorney, had argued for a lesser prison term of four years for her client. She talked about her client’s difficult childhood, and how he turned to dark-web drug operation when he fell on hard times after breaking up with a girlfriend.
Sam Bent also addressed the judge, apologizing for his actions and saying that he understood he deserved punishment for his actions.
“It was a foolish thing to do,” Bent said to the judge.
Bent said he planned to make productive use of his time behind bars, hoping to earn a business degree and put his computer skills to use making money through legal means.
2HAPPYTIMES2 was active on almost all recent markets starting from alphabay. His arrest was a part of Operation Dark Gold– wherein Homelad Security took control of a darknet money launderer’s account and used it to track down different dark web vendors.
He also had a reddit account named 2happytimes2
Full Statement By USAO
The Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Vermont stated that Sam Bent, 33, of Saint Johnsbury, Vermont was sentenced today to a five-year period of incarceration upon his conviction for three counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances over the Dark Web. The prison term will be followed by a three-year period of supervised release. Sam Bent’s sentence also included a $14,000 forfeiture money judgment. Chief United States District Judge Geoffrey Crawford ordered Sam Bent to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on October 1, 2019.
Court records show that from 2017 until April 2018 Sam Bent conspired with his cousin Djeneba Bent, 27, of Concord, Vermont, to distribute cocaine, LSD, MDMA, and other controlled substances over dark web marketplaces that are accessible on the Internet only to persons using encryption techniques. He received payment for his drug sales in bitcoin. Sam Bent’s efforts to convert that cryptocurrency into cash provided the basis for his conviction on three counts of money laundering.
Sam Bent operated the conspiracy out of the East Burke, Vermont, residence he shared with his co-conspirator cousin, Djeneba Bent, until Homeland Security Investigations and the United States Postal Inspection Service searched that residence in April 2018.
In imposing Sam Bent’s sentence, Judge Crawford noted the need to deter others from engaging in the illegal online distribution of controlled substance. Judge Crawford also sentenced Djeneba Bent to a three-year term of probation, noting her lesser role in the conspiracy and other mitigating factors.
The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations and the United States Postal Inspection Service, with assistance from the Vermont State Police.
Sam Bent was represented by Stephanie Greenlees, Esq. Djeneba Bent was represented by Assistant Federal Defender David McColgin, Esq. Assistant United States Attorney Michael Drescher was the prosecutor.
Obviously djeneba bent ratted on her cousin, given she got no jail time what so ever.
2ht2 was a great vendor its good to know that he did not exit scam and was just snitched on i guess.