Quote from: nullius on March 01, 2018, 02:46:37 PM

Standard of evidence: Reasonable, articulable suspicion. Warrants examination. Not proved.

Suspicious links: Permabanned ban evader #813214 amine14madrid, #887705 amine15madrid, #888390 amine16madrid, and other known variations.

Archival reference: https://web.archive.org/web/20180301125625/https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1572983.msg15790516#msg15790516

On 19 February 2018, alia awarded these two merits to the Meta appeal of a permabanned user known to commit ban evasion with alts (merit summary):

Quote

February 19, 2018, 02:12:16 AM: 1 to Amine14madrid ALT for Re: why always me
February 19, 2018, 02:11:58 AM: 1 to Amine14madrid ALT for why always me

At the time, I immediately noticed this; and I questioned Alia about it via PM. The response:

Quote from: alia on February 19, 2018, 10:50:41 AM

Quote from: nullius on February 19, 2018, 06:47:33 AM

Curious here... Im mystified as to why you deemed these meritorious.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1572983.msg15790516#msg15790516

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1572983.msg15790928#msg15790928

They made me laugh out loud, which is very rare for this forum

As so oft the case, Alias explanation is (just barely) plausible. The alia account has shown a quirky, sometimes outright twisted sense of humour; for another example, on 21 February 2018, alia gave +1 to Wendigo for accusing alia of a scam. For immediate reference, the allegedly laugh out loud posts are quoted in full below. To be sure, the posts are absurd. If I assume that a person is acting in good faith (and squint a bit), I can sort of see why a person whom I believed to be a 19-year-old college girl might laugh out loud-level funny (if not why she would deem them meritorious).

Awarding merit to a forum abuser is abusive; however, the user in question is permabanned. Thus, at the time, I saw no more actual harm in it than awards of merit to any other inactive accounts. I deemed the matter a bit of immaturity from a 19-year-old, said to myself nobodys perfect, and shrugged it off.

However, against the background of NLNicos explosive report upthread, I here articulate my suspicion that alia and/or favours may be connected to armine*madrid, or may be armine*madrid, on the following grounds:

It is unlikely that a new user would ever even see the post-ban whine from the year 2016. I myself oftentimes browse old threads; but usually, they are high-quality threads which have been linked from elsewhere, and/or have significant posts by famous users. How and why did alia even find that thread?
An award of merit is, by definition, an endorsement of the post. What I had assumed to be a bit of immaturity from a 19-year-old could, in view of recent evidence, be a shout-out of solidarity to a friendor a vanity homage to oneself.

I could articulate other reasons why this is suspicious; but I believe the above will suffice.

I am totally unfamiliar with the armine*madrid case; I never even heard of the user before I saw those merits. I will try to poke into this later.

Meanwhile, I suggest that those who are familiar with the armine*madrid case and/or have access to IP evidence should examine these accounts for any potential connection.

alia sez, LOL, +1:

Quote from: Amine14madrid ALT on August 02, 2016, 03:35:47 PM

just tell me what i did wrong with my lst posts so i won't do it again, and why im banned, i didn't scam people and i have no red trust, bitcointalk is full with scammers and red trusted users and they are not banned,
this is unfair.
or all this because im from africa?

Again, alia sez, LOL, +1:

Quote from: Amine14madrid ALT on August 02, 2016, 04:20:01 PM

you got to be kidding me!!! i just liked that post and copied it because i found it a good post and the answer for the question, so this is the reason,
-someone scam hundreds of users= he is trying to scam other users now without been banned because you love scammers don't you ??
-someone uses alt accounts in promos and other shit= all of his accounts is still not banned
-someone (me) copy a post and paste it= banned from the forum forever
UNFAIR

(imgur embeds have been changed to web.archive.org. Of course, in the original posts, the images do not show as embeds due to account Newbie status.)

I now have more to say on this topic. I will deliberately double-post, as reasonably required by subject matter plus length.

@scam_detector, I request that you keep this thread open indefinitely. Given what NLNico dug up, I suspect that this thread may carry on some long-term investigationswith potential connections to abuse on other forums as well as this one.

Also, I suggest that the OP subject line be changed since the aTriz matter has been split to its own thread.

P.S., check your trust page.

Jeez. I noticed that account in theymos's red trust, thought it was funny, gave it merit. Don't read into it too much. I'm sure theymos can IP check.

Also, if you guys still believe I am a scammer, even after I repaid aTriz $2,000 even after he broke the contract then you are all braindead. RIP