It was due to very poor Administration and plain stupidity.  The own employed someone who tried to extort him. The owner then hired a hit man (who was actually a federal agent). The owner also logged into the site from a coffee shop using only a VPN and not TOR.  You really should read some of the articles.  They set up a fake hit and everything, including pictures.

So I am optimistic that you're right.

It seemed to me to be a combination of stupidity and reasonably good online/offline detective work.

Very true, but if you don't make mistakes you can't get caught. Unless TOR is broken.

Well, except that assuming TOR isn't broken is a mistake?

Or even just assuming that your client is safe and wasn't tampered with in transit - did you download the source and check every line of code before compiling...?

According to Snowden leaks, tor is very far from broken. Interesting thing though is it has US gummint funding.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/nsa-gchq-attack-tor-network-encryption

The Tor network was not broken, beyond the known statistical analysis flaw, at the time those documents were written, almost a year ago.

The default Tor client ships with a JavaScript-enabled Firefox that is constantly receiving security updates - visit the wrong website and splat.

I don't use Tor. Either the NSA is lying about not having broken it, or they've since broken it, or they still haven't broken it. Whatever.

I don't care what you do or don't use - I was simply clarifying the situation, since your post could give an incorrect impression.

You are very annoying.

You are very annoyed.

Not really.

I'll try harder then. :>