You know when you’re busy & you just throw something up on twitter assuming journalists would catch it. And then 10 hrs later they don’t so you end up writing a thread breaking a story about open source intelligence, massages, burned cop cars, and new riot arrest? Here we go 1/x https://twitter.com/seamushughes/status/1272945778219245571

The FBI has arrested a Philadelphia woman, Lore-Elizabeth Blumenthal for allegedly setting two philly cop cars on fire. Here’s the story of how they tracked her down. It’s involves Etsy, tattoos, and massages.

First, the Feds started with their public affairs folks. When that didn’t do the trick, they tracked down an Instagram picture and got the original from the owner of the account.

From there, they got more pictures. 500 more to be exact from an amateur photographer that was at the protest. They zeroed in on the tattoo and the shirt.

Law enforcement then tracked down the shirt from a seller on @Etsy Using the comment section in the buyer page, they identified a user name. And then cross referenced that user name with @Poshmarkapp account that used her real name.

From that real name, they found a @LinkedIn profile which listed her job. And the next tweet is gonna be a bit out there. Stand by.

They went through the videos of her job at the massage parlor and crossed referenced it with the tattoo.

Then used the phone number listed to hire her for a massage to check DHS travel records with the same number. Which in turn gave them her address.

Which in turn,was the same address from an Etsy subpoena of purchases of that original tshirt.

And that’s how a combination of open source, government databases, and submissions of photos from the protest helped the FBI arrested her.

This is all to say, I gave you all a ten hour head start on this with my original tweet so if you haven’t filed yet, would appreciate a hattip.

FBI Agent trying to explain to the AUSA that the facts in the affadivit is solid enough to go to the judge with it.

We did a similar investigative deal to identify a New Jersey American ISIS member who was masked in videos beheading prisoners in Iraq. Used voice and his old gamer id to track him down. Pre order our book here to read about it. https://www.amazon.com/Homegrown-Alexander-Meleagrou-Hitchens-Seamus-Hughes/dp/1788314859

My bad to the social media interns at Etsy and poshmark trying desperately to figure out how to respond to this thread in a ‘businesses on twitter are so witty aren’t they ’ way.