The Lake City Quiet Pills Internet Mystery

In 2009, an anonymous Reddit user passed away. A friend created an account on Reddit to announce their passing. But curious redditors found these two strangers linked to a bizarre mystery named Lake City Quiet Pills. 

Reddit is a website that bills itself as the “front page of the internet.” In many ways, it is for those that use it. becoming one of the most popular websites in the entire world.

The /r/jailbait is a subreddit that contained drug use, illegal pirating, white nationalists, or even child porn on Reddit. The /u/jailbait subreddit had attracted thousands of followers in the years leading up to this mystery becoming mainstream.

One of these users, who went by the username /u/ReligionOfPeace, acted as a moderator of the /r/jailbait subreddit. /u/ReligionOfPeace seemed to condone marijuana usage, and – in posts on several news and political subreddits. He expressed knowledge in many military subjects and violence. for instance in one reddit post he made references and talked in quite a lot of detail that he knew about what kinds of piano wire could kill someone.

This user introduced a website name – Lake City Quiet Pills, with the title “This Old Guy’s Image Host”. Some Redditors also used that website as an image storage cloud, because there was no Google Drive or Google Photos in 2009.

In one of the last comments of /u/ReligionOfPeace, he stated: “I can think of any number of criminal organizations that would benefit from a dose of Lake City Quiet Pills.”

/u/ReligionOfPeace claimed that he had been born in 1930 had enlisted in the US military at the age of 14, took part in the Battle of Normandy, and came to Jerusalem in ’47. Which the maths doesn’t add up. Neither does the story about him enlisting in the US Military at 14.

/u/ReligionOfPeace claimed to have retired from the military in 1987 to work in a computer-related field, that is why he was on Reddit all of the time at that moment.

By the summer of 2009, lakecityquietpills.com of /u/ReligionOfPeace was full of pornographic material, saved by many Redditors.

On July 17th, 2009 /u/ReligionOfPeace made his last comment on Reddit.

13 hours after the last comment from /u/ReligionOfPeace, a Reddit account /u/2-6 was created and posted that /u/ReligionOfPeace died. /u/2-6 revealed that /u/ReligionOfPeace’s real name Milo, 79 years old, didn’t have any living relatives and no real friends.

Despite containing a variety of spelling and grammar errors, this post received a pretty emotional response by dozens of Redditors. /u/2-6 replied to some comments.

Four days later, on July 21st, 2009, /u/2-6 posted a link of Google Maps and said that was the resting place of /u/ReligionOfPeace, in Pennsylvania.

This is where the story should have ended. However it was only just the beginning of something much larger in size and scope than anyone at that time could have ever foreseen.

A Reddit user passed away, a friend created an account to let other Redditors know about their passing, and then everyone moves on.

But, some users began looking into the trail of breadcrumbs left behind by these two Reddit accounts: both /u/ReligionOfPeace and this new user, /u/2-6. They seemed to have a relationship, but it wasn’t really known at the time.

Over the next several months, Redditors began to uncover a story that was every bit as confusing as it was intriguing. I’ll try my best to explain it, but fair warning: it gets a lot weirder and crazier from this point forward.

Some Reddit users found a similar-sounding username, AngelTwo-Six, on a website named Fark. Fark was a precursor to other sites like Reddit. Coincidentally, the account AngelTwo-Six on Fark was created on October 11th, 2001, and linked to an email address: “angel.two.six@lakecityquietpills.com.”

On Fark, AngelTwo-Six had commented primarily about rifles, amunition, and weaponry. Like /u/ReligionOfPeace, this user seemed to have a history of military service, and commented primarily about violence and shooting.

Reddit users reasonably surmised that the users /u/2-6 and AngelTwo-Six were the same, based on the consistent spelling and grammar mistakes across all accounts. They constantly put the apostrophe in the word “didn’t” after the second D, instead of the N. They spelled “know,” as in the knowledge form of “know,” as N-O. And they misspelled a variety of other rather-easy words, such as “tolerated” or “friend.”

But several Redditors remained convinced that the entire thing was a hoax.

Website lakecityquietpills.com was still working and was attracting more users than ever, because of the death of /u/ReligionOfPeace. Which happens when something like this becomes viral. Curiosity makes people interested in something so, More and more people were using the Lake City Quiet Pills website as an image host.

Some people explored the site’s underlying HTML code and found some hidden codes which looked like hidden messages, with dates/months and years, which showed a bizarre story.

On its surface, lakecityquietpills.com was little more than an image hosting site, which hosted hundreds of pornographic images. But hidden underneath the website was something else entirely.

Hidden inside the site’s HTML code was a motto: “Dispensing Lake City Quiet Pills to lousy bastards in need of permanent rest since 1968.”

Underneath this motto was a random smattering of information, which included names and acronyms which still aren’t clear today.

“Shade is maintaining the calendar and access to the filedump. Angel has the job postings for EU and asia. We aren’t sending anyone to ME. No one. Don’t ask for listings.”

Shade? That’s a new name. But Angel? Sounds a lot like AngelTwo-Six, aka Reddit user /u/2-6. EU and Asia are pretty easy to figure out – Europe and Asia – but the meaning of ME has remained a debate for some time. Some believe it might mean Middle East.

Other messages were what looked like job listings, which detailed requirements that sound an awful lot like mercenary or assassin work.

“Immediate need! 8-10 chinese/korean. Fluent korean/dialect/accent details after contact. 12 week halfpay sequester on refusal.”

“two ground types. Fluent farsi arabic french. no papers, no problems”
“Need formed group (8-10). single op. deliv bonus. “gentleman’s agreement” insurance. Immediate need.”

This website’s HTML code was full of these, which seemed to have no other explanation other than being for military contractors. Maybe not necessarily mercenaries or assassin work, but perhaps defense contractors and bodyguards. These are just a few examples of the dozens of these postings, which were hidden in the HTML code of lakecityquietpills.com.

it was heavily speculated that /u/ReligionOfPeace might have been working on a website that doubled as a job posting site for hitmen, assassins, military contractors, black ops, wetwork…

Over the next few months, people involved with the site continued to post the strange, hidden job postings from before:

“Immediate need! 4 korean. fluent korean/dialect/accent details after contact. 6 week halfpay sequester on refusal. 6mo gig. bonus.”

“2 “business class” security. nonconus. fluent french req.” “2 lite surveil. no us w/w. no mex w/w.

The w/w was suspected of being wants or warrants meaning the person hired for the job had to have no record or be wanted by any law enforcement. Although that is still debated even today.

The HTML code of Lake City Quiet Pills were revealed on Reddit. With many people pouring of them trying to make sense of just what all this meant.

now we come Meaning of the name “Lake City Quiet Pills”.

Redditors began pointing out a government-owned and operated ammunition plant, based out of Independence, Missouri. Named the Lake City Ammunition Plant, it had been created by Remington Arms back in 1941, where it began manufacturing and testing small arms for the U.S. military.

Since 1941, the Lake City Ammunition Plant – also called the Lake City Arsenal – has remained in continuous operation . To this day, it produces nearly 1.4 billion rounds of ammo each and every year, remaining the single largest producer of small arms ammunition for the U.S. Armed Forces.

It is unknown if there is any connection between this plant and the website Lake City Quiet Pills, but the name doesn’t seem coincidental. “Quiet pills” are the bullets manufactured at this facility.

The mystery continues on because In a message inside the HTML code, dated the same day as the death of /u/ReligionOfPeace – which was announced to Reddit – July 17th, 2009:

“I am sorry to tell you that old Milo died yesterday. He went quiet and calm, not like we all figured. I gave that fat mangy cat of his to the little girl next door. No services or nothing, you know Milo. I’m taking his ashes back to where his farm was. Close to it anyway. Theirs a mall where his place was.

“So hoist a few for the old man. Remember what he said, keep with the man who’se got your back.”

Based on a couple of misspellings in this post, people investigating this reasonably surmised that this post was written by AngelTwo-Six, a.k.a /u/2-6.

On September 30th, 2009 – more than two months later – this person posted:

“For those who have asked, I bricked Milo’s IronKey the same day. All is well.”

It was implied that there was incriminating information on Milo’s hard drive, which now no longer exists.

Now the part about an iron key is of great significance because an iron key isn’t just an ordinary usb stick its actually a very secure USB stick Specifically, the device provides XTS-AES 256-bit Encryption. In addition, it is FIPS 140-2 Level 3 Certified. This means even the US government trusts the encryption and hardware security so it's really a 'battleship hardened' storage device that fits in your pocket. It can also be set up in a way that it will wipe all data on it if the password is entered incorrectly too many times.

This USB is also very pricy setting you back several hundred dollars. So it isn’t something you’d buy simply to store flash games and Pirated movies.

Whatever was on the iron key that was wiped was something very important that need to be not only protected but encrypted.

In January of 2010, AngelTwo-Six returned:

“hapy new year, everyone. were having a birthday party for the old man on the 19th. party starts at 1500 at the usual. send your rsvp to shade. fyi, were booking a room for 3 days for anyone coming from out of area, and overnight for locals. come hoist one for dutch milo!

To most this didn’t sound out of the ordinary a birthday bash to celebrate the life of someone that brought so many people together.

However, many have interpreted this post to have a different meaning altogether. In the years since this hidden message appeared in the code of lakecityquietpills.com, some have tried to tie this gathering – this alleged “party” – to one of the most intricate assassinations of the last century. That of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh

Now In the 1970’s, Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh joined the Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza Strip. In the mid- 1980’s, Al-Mabhouh began to associate with Hamas – the organization that petitions for the creation of a Palestinian state. Many consider it a terrorist organization, but it has also been serving as the governing body for the Gaza Strip for more than a decade.

Over the next two-and-a-half decades, Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh earned a reputation in Hamas. In particular, he claimed credit for the 1989 killing of two Israeli soldiers. This action made him one of Israel‘s Most Wanted.

By the mid-2000’s, he was serving as the chief of logistics and weapons procurement for the military wing of Hamas, and was playing a vital role in the burgeoning relationship between Hamas and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

This made Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh a target. Towards the end of the early 2000’s, he became the target of multiple assassination attempts.

He lived in Syria but often traveled around the Middle East, conducting business for Hamas. He usually traveled under fake names, using fake passports, with security guards.

Unbeknownst to anyone AL-Mabhouh’s computer had been hacked by a trojan software. In early January of 2010, Al-Mabhouh booked a flight to Dubai and stayed there for at least two days.

On this trip, he was not going to be followed by bodyguards, who would arrive a day after him. For at least 24 hours, Al-Mabhouh would be in a foreign nation, isolated and alone.

On January 19th, 2010, Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh arrived in Dubai, UAE. He was flying alone, under a fake name, and with no security guards.

Earlier that day, his trip had been preceded by a small network of men and women. Numbering around two dozen in total, these individuals had arrived in Dubai using fake names and passports of their own, and began coordinating their efforts to track Al-Mabhouh. They likely knew the ins-and-outs of each hotel, and were waiting in the lobbies of every hotel, awaiting his arrival.

On at least two occasions, these men and women would enter restrooms to briefly change up their disguise, and don a wig or exchange items of clothing. The captured footage also showed Al-Mabhouh arriving at the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel, room 230, where two men were standing in the lobby, wearing tennis gear and holding tennis rackets.

As Al-Mabhouh made his way to his hotel room, one operative remained in the lobby, and began reporting in to the other operatives. At this point, the other operatives – who were all in hotels in the surrounding region – began to converge on this location.

A man whose fake passport named as “Peter Elvinger” – made a phone call from the business center of another hotel nearby. He requested the room directly across the hall from Al-Mabhouh – room 237.

This was all captured by security cameras. When another hotel guest walked out of a nearby elevator, one of the operatives attempted to distract them while the other operative continued breaking room 230, and they made short work of the door’s lock. When Al-Mabhouh returned to the room at around 8:30 PM, he had no suspicions whatsoever. The door unlocked normally, and he entered... completely and totally unaware that there were a handful of individuals waiting for him inside.

Roughly twenty minutes later, the operatives in room 230 began exiting the room, and returned to room 237. They then began to exit the hotel one-by-one, with all of their belongings in-tow.

Within four hours, almost all of these men and women left Dubai entirely, with their flights taking them all across the globe: to Frankfurt (Germany), Bangkok (Thailand), Zurich (Switzerland), Rome (Italy), Johannesburg (South Africa), Paris (France), and Doha (Qatar).

Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh’s body wasn’t discovered until the next morning – roughly twelve hours after he had been killed.

When hotel staff checked in on Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh the next morning – on January 20th, 2010 – they noted that the door was locked from the inside. This made the death appear natural, and investigators originally noted the death as being from natural causes.

Prior to his death, Al-Mabhouh had been injected with a fast-acting muscle relaxant – succinylcholine – but which acted as a paralyzing agent. Despite remaining conscious through the proceeding events, Al- Mabhouh was unable to resist.

Al-Mahmoud was electrocuted prior to his death, and when he was finally killed, it came via suffocation via pillow.

However, that was not the first visit of the assassins to Dubai. Almost all of these men and women had visited Dubai numerous times in the preceding months, allowing them to get a feel for the hotels and the quickest routes between locations. They had checked in to various hotels in the region; each of them being hotels that Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh had previously stayed at.

They had all been using fake passports, which included the UK, Ireland, Australia, France, and Germany. In addition, several of these operatives had made phone calls to a number in Austria. How these passports were able to obtained still remains a mystery which only deepend when the country’s where the passports were issued from investigated further.

Suspects

Dubai's police chief, Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, announced his preliminary conclusions on 18 February that, "Our investigations reveal that Mossad is involved in the murder of al-Mabhouh ... It is 99% if not 100% that Mossad is standing behind the murder." After identifying the assumed names and photographs of 11 suspects, on 20 February 2010, he said his force had evidence directly incriminating the Mossad in the murder, adding that among the new evidence available were telephone communications between the suspected killers.

On 24 February 2010, Dubai police identified 15 additional persons suspected of being involved in al-Mabhouh's assassination. According to journalist Uzi Mahnaimi, the decision to kill al-Mabhouh was authorized by Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, after being suggested by Meir Dagan, the head of the Mossad, at a meeting in early January 2010. Later in March, Dubai police chief said "I am now completely sure that it was Mossad," and furthermore went on to say "I have presented the (Dubai) prosecutor with a request for the arrest of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and the head of Mossad," for the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

Dubai police said the assassins spent little time in the emirate, arriving less than a day before the assassination, killing al-Mabhouh between his arrival at 3:15 p.m. and 9 p.m. that night, and subsequently leaving the country before his discovery. The identities used by 11 of the suspects have been made public. The total number of suspects stands at 18, all of whom entered the country using fake or fraudulently obtained passports. Dubai police, who stated that their airport personnel were trained by Europeans to identify faked documents, said that the European passports used were not forgeries. British, Canadian, and Irish governments said the passports bearing their countries' names were, "either fraudulently obtained or [are] outright fakes." All the stolen passports are from countries that do not need visas for the UAE. Which is interesting given the supposed connection between this. Assassination and the listings found in the HTML code uncovered by reddit users.

United Kingdom: Six passports with the names Paul John Keely, Stephan Daniel Hodes, Melvyn Adam Mildiner, Jonathan Louis Graham, James Leonard Clarke, and Michael Lawrence Barney, and another six passports with the names Daniel Marc Schnur, Gabriella Barney, Roy Allan Cannon, Stephen Keith Drake, Mark Sklur, and Philip Carr.

On 24 May 2010, another British suspect was publicized - Briton Christopher Lockwood. It was later discovered that this suspect had stolen the identity of an Israeli soldier who was killed in the Yom Kippur War.

Republic of Ireland : Three passports with the names Gail Folliard, Kevin Daveron, and Evan Dennings and another three with the names Ivy Brinton, Anna Shauna Clasby, and Chester Halvey.

Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs declared that the passports used by the suspects were counterfeit and stated that it was "unable to identify any of those three individuals as being genuine Irish". According to the department, Ireland has never issued passports in those names. While the names and signatures were fake, the numbers on the passports were genuine, and belong to Irish citizens. Four of the five citizens have been contacted by the Department of Foreign Affairs, all of whom live in Ireland; none of them have travelled to the Middle East, lost their passports or had them stolen.

France: One passport with the name Peter Elvinger (suspected of being used by the hit squad leader, and logistical coordinator), plus another three passports with the names David Bernard LaPierre, Mélanie Heard, and Eric Rassineux.

According to a spokesman of the French Foreign Affairs ministry, the passport in the name of Elvinger was counterfeit. The French government summoned the Israeli chargé d'affaires in Paris on 18 February and the French Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing, "deep concern about the malicious and fraudulent use of these French administrative documents.”

Germany: One passport with the name Michael Bodenheimer.

German officials initially said that the passport number which they received from the authorities in Dubai is either incomplete or does not exist. Later, it was revealed that the passport was genuine. According to German federal investigators, an Israeli man named Michael Bodenheimer acquired German citizenship in June 2008 after providing immigration officials in Cologne with the pre-World War II address of his grandparents and his parents' marriage certificate. He stated that he was an Israeli citizen and gave his address as a temporary "virtual office" that he had bought in Herzliya (as of 22 February the office does not exist anymore). A Michael Bodenheimer who lives in Israel and holds dual American and Israeli citizenships said he does not know how his identity was stolen. One person who has the passport name Uri Brodsky was arrested in Poland in early June 2010. He was in Cologne with Michael Bodenheimer and Germany is seeking his extradition.

Australia: Three passports with the names Nicole Sandra Mccabe (who at the time was heavily pregnant according to her mother), Adam Korman and Joshua Aaron Krycer. Adam Marcus Korman, an Israeli-Australian citizen living in Israel, said that he was shocked and angry that his identity was stolen. In addition, the other three names are names of residents of Israel. A man named Joshua Krycer works in a hospital located in Jerusalem.

The names used on the British passports belong to suspects who live in Israel and hold dual citizenships. An analysis of the assassination in The Jewish Chronicle noted that this, "is the first real piece of information that could link Israel to the operation." According to Palestine Chronicle Post, Mossad is known to use the identities of Israelis with dual citizenship. In 1997, two Mossad agents traveled with Canadian passports of dual citizenship Israelis to Amman in a botched attempt on the life of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. According to former katsa Victor Ostrovsky, a Canadian citizen, the Mossad formerly asked permission to use the passports of Israelis with dual nationality, but "I believe at some point, they stopped asking.”

A Jerusalem-based British citizen whose name was used on one of the passports told Reuters news agency that he has never been to Dubai and had no connection with the Mossad or the killing. He said that he did not "know how this happened or who chose my name or why". In addition, three other Israelis whose names appeared on the passports reported to the Israeli Channel 2 news that they did not understand the coincidence, and were not related at all to the suspects. In the wake of the revelation that passports of British citizens had figured prominently in the operation, the United Kingdom's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) launched its own investigation into the matter, and plans to interview the first round of British passport holders that had their identities stolen. The British Foreign Office also summoned the Israeli ambassador on 18 February to share information on the matter. The British government denied claims that Mossad had tipped off the UK that their passports would be used for an operation.

The photographs of 11 of the suspected killers were added to Interpol's most wanted list on 18 February, with a note specifying that they had been published since the identities adopted by the suspects were faked. Dubai airport officials carried out routine retinal scans on 11 of the suspects sought in the assassination when they entered the country and Dubai police said they would publish the scans through INTERPOL.

YNetnews said some hit squad members fled to Iran after the assassination.

Seventeen of the suspects used MasterCards branded by MetaBank of Storm Lake, Iowa but issued by Payoneer Inc which were used to buy their plane tickets in other countries before their arrival in Dubai. Other credit cards show ties to Britain's Nationwide Building Society, IDT Finance of Gilbraltar, and Germany's DZ Bank AG. Payoneer is an Israeli start-up now based in New York with R&D offices and a majority of its employees in Tel Aviv. CEO Yuval Tal, is a former member of the IDF Special Forces. Payoneer is held by three venture capital firms: Greylock Partners, Carmel Ventures, and Crossbar Capital. Greylock, which has offices in the U.S. and Herzliya, Israel, was established by Moshe Mor, a former military intelligence captain in the Israeli army. Carmel Ventures is an Israeli venture capital fund based in Herzliya. Crossbar Partners is run by Charlie Federman, who is also managing director of the BRM Group, a venture capital fund also in Herzliya that was co-founded by Nir Barkat, the former mayor of Jerusalem. Mossad HQ are located in Herzliya.

The New York Post originally reported that Tal has disappeared since his company was identified as the issuer of some of the killers' credit cards, with his Brooklyn neighbors telling the NYPD that he left the country. He reappeared a day later, however.

The Dubai Police has found the DNA of one person and some fingerprints of other persons which are suspected. The chief of Dubai Police Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim said that there are 648 hours of video films in which the 27 suspected persons are appearing and announced that the police has found the DNA of four suspected agents.

Arrests

Two Palestinians, Ahmad Hasnin, an intelligence operative of the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA), and Anwar Shekhaiber, an employee of the PA in Ramallah, were arrested in Jordan and handed over to Dubai as suspected accomplices to the assassination, suspected of giving logistical assistance such as providing car rentals and hotel bookings. Hamas claimed that their arrest was evidence linking the Palestinian Authority to the killing, while the Palestinian Authority retorted by accusing the arrested Palestinians of being members of Hamas.

The two men are reported to be related to one another and to have lived in Gaza until Hamas took over full control of the Strip in 2006. One went straight to Dubai, while the other joined him after first going to Ramallah, where he was sentenced to death by a Palestinian Authority court, a punishment generally handed down to Israeli collaborators. The recruitment of Ahmad Hasnin by the Mossad could have been done when he was imprisoned by Israel for a month in June 2007 for his involvement with Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the military wing for Fatah. He came to the UAE in 2008, according to a family source.

Dubai authorities said that one of the two Palestinians held in custody met a suspect in a suspicious place, time and manner, while the second is closely related to him and was found to have already been sentenced to death by one of the Palestinian parties. The second suspect is wanted by Hamas. They are both being held to ensure that no one comes to execute them.

A Haaretz report based on information from an unnamed Arab diplomatic source said that Dubai police had asked Syria to detain Mohammed Nasser and other Hamas men for questioning. According to media reports, Nasser was in Dubai in the days before al-Mabhouh's killing and was intimately familiar with his schedule and whereabouts.

Dubai Police chief Dahi Khalfan said on 3 March 2010 he requested for the Dubai prosecutor to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of Mossad, Meir Dagan for the murder.

He also announced Canada had arrested a suspect who "was among the preparatory group which arrived in the country and left it before the crime was committed." The suspect was reported to be one amongst a number of suspects for whom Interpol has issued red corner notices on behalf of the UAE. The following day, however, the Canadian embassy in the UAE denied this but said they were liaising with authorities back in Canada to verify the status of the arrest.

Alexander Verin/Uri Brodsky

On 4 June 2010, Polish police arrested a man at Warsaw airport carrying a false passport with the name Uri Brodsky, who was wanted by German authorities. A European Arrest Warrant from Germany specified that Brodsky, also known as Alexander Verin (or Varin), was "suspected of being involved in illegally obtaining a [German] passport" for another man known as Michael Bodenheimer, who is alleged to have taken part in Mahmoud al-Mabhouh's murder. A Polish court approved Brodsky's extradition to Germany on 7 July, pending appeal. However, the extradition was approved on the basis that Brodsky would not face German charges of espionage – instead he would only face the lesser charge of falsely-obtaining documents. Brodsky was transferred to German custody on 12 August, released on €100,000 bail on 13 August, and flown back to Israel on 14 August. The German prosecutor indicated that Brodsky would not have to face trial after all, but instead that "the matter can now be dealt with by written proceedings," most likely resulting in a fine. At the end of 2010, Germany suspended the case of falsifying documents in lieu of a €60,000 fine; however, a German arrest warrant on the espionage charges remains in effect.

Arrest of a top suspect

On 11 October 2010, The National of Abu Dhabi published an interview with Dubai's police chief Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, in which he claims that a western country had arrested a top suspect of killing al-Mabhouh about two months earlier. The ambassador of the western country does not want to name the country and the name of the arrested suspect. Tamim expressed frustration at the lack of detail: "Why is it that every time an Israeli is involved in a crime, everyone goes mute? We want anyone who is dealing with this case to deal with it as a security case, and not to pay attention to any other consideration."

While some of the assassins had paid their way in cash, many of them had used Payoneer – a specific type of prepaid credit card. These credit cards had been branded in the United States, but it was rumored that the CEO of Payoneer – Yuval Tal – had direct ties to Israeli intelligence – Mossad. Due to the victim being a high-ranking member of Hamas, as well as being a long-sought target of their intelligence forces, it made sense that Israel was involved in some fashion.

Conclusion of investigation

In February of 2010, the chief of Dubai police publicly stated that this assassination was most likely ordered by Mossad – Israel’s intelligence force. Israel refused the claim.

A total of 18 operatives were named, 11 has faces, wanted by Interpol, but because they had been using fake identities at the time of this operation, it was unknown who, exactly, they were.

Foreign Affairs ministry of the UK, France, Ireland stated that the passports used had been fakes. The United States refused to investigate Payoneer credit cards’ holders.

Some people who were suspected as coordinators of the assassins were arrested in Jordan and Poland, but could not sentence. They were disappeared after that.

There was one other very interesting piece about this that no one has ever gotten to the bottom of although several people tried. Thinking sideways podcast did an episode on this case and were able to contact and interview several redditors who investigated this case from the very beginning one of them stated that a whois, which is where you type in the name of a website and it will give you all the information about who owns the website, was run on lakecityquietpills.com and it led them back to a small bank branch in the midwest that had Israeli connections which really got people wondering just what they had stumbled upon and whether there really was a link between this lakecityquietpills website and this assassination. Although no link has ever been found.

Now how all this tied back into this mysterious website was There was a message sent out on January 12th, 2010 – just about a week before the assassination unfolded in Dubai. That message invited people out to a birthday celebration for Milo – aka /u/ReligionOfPeace, the Reddit user that had died the year prior.

The message hidden in Lake City Quiet Pills’ HTML code stated that the party started at around 15:00, roughly fitting in with the time period that Al-Mabhouh was flying into Dubai.

Another message was sent out the day before the assassination:

“we got 38 rooms in the marriot on 46. shade has the key cards for locals (pick up at the party). give your travel name to the desk and that’s it. no id needed since were covering the bill. keep the room service under 500, okay? the phones there are not secure.

“bus from the hotel leafs at 13:30. car service vowchers for return trip when your ready to crash. DONT DUI!!!!”

These instructions seem very odd for a party. Who needs to worry about using a travel name for a birthday party? Who needs to worry about insecure phone lines? What kind of party rents out 38 rooms in a single hotel?

the next part of the message was even more interesting. On February 2nd, 2010 – roughly two weeks later. That post, titled “party bills,” read as follows:

“here is the final for the party

“hotel rooms 48341 limo 6080 bus 569 bar bill 18890 food 8030 dancers 8300 misc tips 850 misc exp 2840 med supplies 180 (fat tommy and stu are okay, to.)

“total 94080

“you all did dutch milo proud. thanks.”

After that, the code for Lake City Quiet Pills was changed and encrypted, unable to be read again. Now what was odd about this was shortly after these guys realised reddit was on to them they changed to an unbreakable code then stopped altogether so was it really an accident that this code was found the way it was or was it by design a sort of obscurity is the best security who would ever look through a websites HTML code sort of thing?

Stranger still the subreddit for the investigation - r/LakeCityQuietPills - turned quiet- all the available info had already been poured over, and the only people who would know more won't be speaking about it, and it wouldn't be surprising if people had given up on it. However, there was an interesting post made on there.

This message was posted by user u/RetirementPlanlcqp (an account created just to make this post) and reads as follows:

It's time to stop. These people are very rich but that money does not come from "merc" work. Shade and Milo were software engineers at a later stage of their life due to injuries sustained in combat. Maybe not Shade but he still went that route as well. Their jobs were organizing heists/smuggling ops. Simple as that. This is why recruitment was largely language based. Merc work does pay well but not well enough to net you millions$$$ for operations when your team is only a few men large. That money does not come out of thin air and lets you buy heavy weaponry. Some of these posters/members have no background in merc work. They do however have work in public and private transportation. Milo is definitely real and at a later part of his life started relieving his duties and gave it to others who'd continue his work. His hobbies were compsci (webhosting, programming, 3d modelling), jacking off and organizing "jobs" as he spent a third part of his life on the web. His organization went under after Shade's suicide (he had cancer anyways) and I think the new one has been operating for 3 years. I will respect their privacy and hopefully this gives people closure. The initial belief that it's a PMC stationed in Africa is wrong. Milo had right-wing leanings and recruited like minded people. Look up what Rhodesia actually means to people nowadays and you'll understand. South Africa is still deemed their home due to the real estate they kept buying up but they've operated across the world. Also easy to find desperate like-minded people there. A message to the lcqp. I cleared your tracks. Have a good one.

The website was then taken offline with the mystery still remaining behind.

It’s possible that this was mostly contracting work – stuff like security and bodyguards – who often provided protection for companies and business executives. Or a hoax? Although that is hard to believe as people don’t just leave messages in HTML text behind a website. In fact when thinking sideways interviewed one of their guests he had a few thoughts on that chief among then was they had acciently left this text behind and this wasn’t actually where it was being posted which meant there as another unknown forum where this was being posted and left in the websites HTML text by mistake.

In addition to the assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mahbouh remaining unsolved to this day, the story behind Lake City Quiet Pills remains unresolved.

Sources:

https://viethotnews.com/lake-city-quiet-pills-unsolved-mystery-part-1

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/71zcqt/possible_lake_city_quiet_pills_development/

https://circleid.com/posts/20191002_unraveling_unsolved_mysteries_with_threat_intelligence