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):


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


As so oft the case, Alia’s 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 “nobody’s perfect”, and shrugged it off.

However, against the background of NLNico’s 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 friend—or 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.

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“alia” sez, LOL, +1:


Again, “alia” sez, LOL, +1:


(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.)

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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 investigations—with 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.