A great article in Wired Magazine’s Threat Level section that describes how a Chinese citizen from Macau named Chi Tong KUOK, among other aliases, was indicted for attempting to purchase NSA cryptography equipment.

The interest from an Internet investigations perspective? According to the article and to the attached indictment filed in California Federal court, much of the discussions between Kuok and his clients (who happened to be undercover operatives from the U.S. Department of Defense) occurred over email from multiple email accounts controlled by Kuok. Furthermore at least $1,200 of the payments made by Kuok to his customers were sent via Paypal (the other payments were made by good old fashion Western Union). Finally, according to the article Kuok attempted to purchase cryptography gear on eBay.

One of the comments in the article said “they only catch the dumb ones” but I would argue that these types of communication mechanisms and transaction facilities are probably used more widely than one might think.