There has been a few threads on orders in the EU and potential trouble if they are stopped in customs - So I figured I'd share some resources and best practices to make shopping safer.
NB: Doing everything on this list is probably not necessary, and would also be somewhat pricey and time consuming. But it's always better to be informed and reduce risks to a point where you are comfortable with them. And if you are going to order anyway but feel nervous, at least it makes you experience less stress.
Before anyone mentions it, of course you will not be completely anonymous since you need to receive the package - There are services that help you circumvent this too, but they are mostly businesses that will deliver your information to officials if requested, so while the sender won't know who you are it doesn't offer any protection against the law.
There are re-shippers that operate outside of the law which will keep your information safe, but knowing which ones are reliable is difficult at best. And I don't feel comfortable vouching for any of them.
Keep in mind that if your package gets seized by customs, your goal isn't necessarily to be a criminal mastermind - you just need to avoid being low hanging fruit. So if you do order something that might get you into trouble, make sure you think through how you will react in the worst case scenario - your 500mg of semaglutide is not worth a heavy investment in man hours, but if they feel it's an open and shut case - they are more likely to pursue it in order to pad their statistics.
You are innocent until proven guilty: Article 48 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union affirms the right to the presumption of innocence.
Which means that a package sent to your address does not make you guilty of anything - they have to prove that you ordered/requested/agreed to have it sent to you, either by admission or a heavy enough amount of proof to safely assume that you did indeed do so.
The worst case scenario is that they show up with a warrant, in that case there isn't really much you can do if you have a stockpile of "illicit goods" in your freezer.
But if you don't have any criminal record or notes on you/your address, a small amount of peptides will most likely not warrant such an action. The more likely scenario is that you are called in for questioning, and maybe they request your cooperation to investigate/push you to admit guilt, that would depend on the case officers mood and whims.
In this case, if you cooperate and give them access to information they request and stick to the story that you have no clue why you received the package nor who sent it - it is very likely that they will give up on pursuing the case, it is not a reasonable use of their resources to do so unless they feel like they can close this thing with minimal effort.
So don't have the tracking sent to your registered phone number or main email, that's asking for trouble.
I would also recommend that you never pick up a package before receiving the pick-up notification - that is automatically an admission of ownership. This happened to a customer of an acquaintance not too long ago, the recipient was told not to go to the post office and to wait for the pick-up notification - If it didn't arrive the package would be reshipped. He didn't listen and went to the post office with the tracking number, and when he turned around to leave with his package containing 1kg of weed there was two police officers standing behind him. He panicked and admitted he was going to sell it on the spot...
While this example is a lot more serious than peptides, the issue is that the law is the law - so as soon as you are proven guilty, you are in trouble.
Payments:
Crypto is by far the best way to stay anonymous, but crypto transactions in general is a lot easier to track than a wire transfer. So if staying anonymous from officials is the goal, you can't simply register on an exchange and buy crypto that you send to the seller.
That said, the recipient will not have any way of knowing who you are - So it does protect your information from the supplier.
The main tracking point of crypto, is where you buy it - usually with your card, on an app/website with KYC requirements. If the business you use doesn't mind giving your information to officials when requested, your transactions are easy to trace.
The vendor you use matters here, since the wallet they use to receive is most likely unregistered. So if the vendor frequently switches their recipient address or gives you a fresh address to pay to, it is very difficult to determine what you paid for even if the transaction is traceable to an endpoint. If the vendor in addition to that also washes or mixes the received payments before withdrawing it becomes "impossible" (more like not worth it) to track the payment.
There are also cryptos like XMR(Monero), DASH, ZEC etc that has a built in privacy function and are not traceable (Any encryption is possible to crack, but you would have to be involved in something significantly more severe in order for that to be a possibility).
I'd be happy to write a complete guide on crypto payments if there is any interest for it, but for this post I'll cut it short.
To be fair, a lot of the above would also be true even for a wire transfer or paypal. But it would usually be easier to determine the endpoint since there are strict KYC requirements in place in the financial system - And the vendor wouldn't have the same ease of changing recipient addresses etc).
Email:
Protonmail.com lets you register an email without any need for a phone number or secondary email. It is also an encrypted service, so not even proton mail themselves are able to access your communication. That encryption obviously doesn't extend to the recipient, so it is safer to communicate directly with another proton mail address - But they won't know who you have been communicating with, so there is close to no chance that they will manage to request the recipients emails.
So if you adamantly state that you forgot the login, there isn't much they can do about it (simply deleting the app from your phone would probably ensure they wouldn't even know that you have a proton mail) - you can't even recover it yourself... And there is no law against preferring privacy and using an encrypted service.
Phone numbers:
An easy and cheap way to stay safe, is to use one time verification numbers when communicating on WhatsApp and similar services - it costs around 7$ a month to rent a number to verify a specific service.
For 25$ a month you can rent a number to receive any sms - including your tracking information and pick-up notification. Paid with crypto of course.
I use simverify.com and realtextnumbers.com for this purpose. And there are currently no issues with their service - I can not guarantee that won't change though, but for now they are completely safe to use.
Anonymous card payments:
Got something you need to pay with a CC, that's easy too. https://pst.net lets you buy digital cards useable more or less anywhere (visa and mastercard) with crypto. And there is no KYC for amounts under 500$ (per account, if you transfer in a total amount exceeding 500$ it will be locked until you complete simplified KYC.
VPN:
Using logs from your ISP provider would be another easy way to determine guilt, using a no-log VPN removes this risk. Nordvpn for example.
Use a specific browser for anything related to your research and orders:
Using one specific browser for the purpose makes it easier to clear history so it's clean if you experience the worst case scenario and access to your computer is requested, or if it's seized. You can use brave for example, and set history and data older than x days to automatically be deleted.
Check your shipments:
If you order frequently, check the packages and see if they have been opened in transit. It is a common tactic to log and let orders through, then use an accumulation of orders as proof that you actually ordered the items. However, they could also have opened it simply to take a look without determining that it's illicit goods.
Private vs govt postal services:
If your shipment is customs processed by a private company, they are not allowed to open your package without consent. So they will send you a letter requesting permission, this does not mean that they have determined that your package is illegal, but it does indicate that they want to take a better look at it. In this case, you can reply that you have not ordered anything if you feel like it's risky. Or you can give them permission (You could at the same time ask who the sender is since you can not remember ordering anything - But I'm unsure how that would affect the process). There is a decent chance that they still send it through if your supplier does the packaging and declaration properly.
While there are no guarantees, this will make your shopping safer. And the chance that you experience a situation where all this is necessary is rather low. I think the most helpful takeaway might be to understand that you truly are innocent until you admit guilt, or if they can prove or very strongly indicate that you did in fact order the products.
A word of caution: Do not let this "guide" make you think you are 100% safe and you can order whatever you want - If you were not comfortable with the risk before reading this, you should not let me convince you otherwise. The risk is still there - But if you already decided to order and take that risk, why not reduce it 🙂
NB: Doing everything on this list is probably not necessary, and would also be somewhat pricey and time consuming. But it's always better to be informed and reduce risks to a point where you are comfortable with them. And if you are going to order anyway but feel nervous, at least it makes you experience less stress.
Before anyone mentions it, of course you will not be completely anonymous since you need to receive the package - There are services that help you circumvent this too, but they are mostly businesses that will deliver your information to officials if requested, so while the sender won't know who you are it doesn't offer any protection against the law.
There are re-shippers that operate outside of the law which will keep your information safe, but knowing which ones are reliable is difficult at best. And I don't feel comfortable vouching for any of them.
Keep in mind that if your package gets seized by customs, your goal isn't necessarily to be a criminal mastermind - you just need to avoid being low hanging fruit. So if you do order something that might get you into trouble, make sure you think through how you will react in the worst case scenario - your 500mg of semaglutide is not worth a heavy investment in man hours, but if they feel it's an open and shut case - they are more likely to pursue it in order to pad their statistics.
You are innocent until proven guilty: Article 48 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union affirms the right to the presumption of innocence.
Which means that a package sent to your address does not make you guilty of anything - they have to prove that you ordered/requested/agreed to have it sent to you, either by admission or a heavy enough amount of proof to safely assume that you did indeed do so.
The worst case scenario is that they show up with a warrant, in that case there isn't really much you can do if you have a stockpile of "illicit goods" in your freezer.
But if you don't have any criminal record or notes on you/your address, a small amount of peptides will most likely not warrant such an action. The more likely scenario is that you are called in for questioning, and maybe they request your cooperation to investigate/push you to admit guilt, that would depend on the case officers mood and whims.
In this case, if you cooperate and give them access to information they request and stick to the story that you have no clue why you received the package nor who sent it - it is very likely that they will give up on pursuing the case, it is not a reasonable use of their resources to do so unless they feel like they can close this thing with minimal effort.
So don't have the tracking sent to your registered phone number or main email, that's asking for trouble.
I would also recommend that you never pick up a package before receiving the pick-up notification - that is automatically an admission of ownership. This happened to a customer of an acquaintance not too long ago, the recipient was told not to go to the post office and to wait for the pick-up notification - If it didn't arrive the package would be reshipped. He didn't listen and went to the post office with the tracking number, and when he turned around to leave with his package containing 1kg of weed there was two police officers standing behind him. He panicked and admitted he was going to sell it on the spot...
While this example is a lot more serious than peptides, the issue is that the law is the law - so as soon as you are proven guilty, you are in trouble.
Payments:
Crypto is by far the best way to stay anonymous, but crypto transactions in general is a lot easier to track than a wire transfer. So if staying anonymous from officials is the goal, you can't simply register on an exchange and buy crypto that you send to the seller.
That said, the recipient will not have any way of knowing who you are - So it does protect your information from the supplier.
The main tracking point of crypto, is where you buy it - usually with your card, on an app/website with KYC requirements. If the business you use doesn't mind giving your information to officials when requested, your transactions are easy to trace.
The vendor you use matters here, since the wallet they use to receive is most likely unregistered. So if the vendor frequently switches their recipient address or gives you a fresh address to pay to, it is very difficult to determine what you paid for even if the transaction is traceable to an endpoint. If the vendor in addition to that also washes or mixes the received payments before withdrawing it becomes "impossible" (more like not worth it) to track the payment.
There are also cryptos like XMR(Monero), DASH, ZEC etc that has a built in privacy function and are not traceable (Any encryption is possible to crack, but you would have to be involved in something significantly more severe in order for that to be a possibility).
I'd be happy to write a complete guide on crypto payments if there is any interest for it, but for this post I'll cut it short.
To be fair, a lot of the above would also be true even for a wire transfer or paypal. But it would usually be easier to determine the endpoint since there are strict KYC requirements in place in the financial system - And the vendor wouldn't have the same ease of changing recipient addresses etc).
Email:
Protonmail.com lets you register an email without any need for a phone number or secondary email. It is also an encrypted service, so not even proton mail themselves are able to access your communication. That encryption obviously doesn't extend to the recipient, so it is safer to communicate directly with another proton mail address - But they won't know who you have been communicating with, so there is close to no chance that they will manage to request the recipients emails.
So if you adamantly state that you forgot the login, there isn't much they can do about it (simply deleting the app from your phone would probably ensure they wouldn't even know that you have a proton mail) - you can't even recover it yourself... And there is no law against preferring privacy and using an encrypted service.
Phone numbers:
An easy and cheap way to stay safe, is to use one time verification numbers when communicating on WhatsApp and similar services - it costs around 7$ a month to rent a number to verify a specific service.
For 25$ a month you can rent a number to receive any sms - including your tracking information and pick-up notification. Paid with crypto of course.
I use simverify.com and realtextnumbers.com for this purpose. And there are currently no issues with their service - I can not guarantee that won't change though, but for now they are completely safe to use.
Anonymous card payments:
Got something you need to pay with a CC, that's easy too. https://pst.net lets you buy digital cards useable more or less anywhere (visa and mastercard) with crypto. And there is no KYC for amounts under 500$ (per account, if you transfer in a total amount exceeding 500$ it will be locked until you complete simplified KYC.
VPN:
Using logs from your ISP provider would be another easy way to determine guilt, using a no-log VPN removes this risk. Nordvpn for example.
Use a specific browser for anything related to your research and orders:
Using one specific browser for the purpose makes it easier to clear history so it's clean if you experience the worst case scenario and access to your computer is requested, or if it's seized. You can use brave for example, and set history and data older than x days to automatically be deleted.
Check your shipments:
If you order frequently, check the packages and see if they have been opened in transit. It is a common tactic to log and let orders through, then use an accumulation of orders as proof that you actually ordered the items. However, they could also have opened it simply to take a look without determining that it's illicit goods.
Private vs govt postal services:
If your shipment is customs processed by a private company, they are not allowed to open your package without consent. So they will send you a letter requesting permission, this does not mean that they have determined that your package is illegal, but it does indicate that they want to take a better look at it. In this case, you can reply that you have not ordered anything if you feel like it's risky. Or you can give them permission (You could at the same time ask who the sender is since you can not remember ordering anything - But I'm unsure how that would affect the process). There is a decent chance that they still send it through if your supplier does the packaging and declaration properly.
While there are no guarantees, this will make your shopping safer. And the chance that you experience a situation where all this is necessary is rather low. I think the most helpful takeaway might be to understand that you truly are innocent until you admit guilt, or if they can prove or very strongly indicate that you did in fact order the products.
A word of caution: Do not let this "guide" make you think you are 100% safe and you can order whatever you want - If you were not comfortable with the risk before reading this, you should not let me convince you otherwise. The risk is still there - But if you already decided to order and take that risk, why not reduce it 🙂
