Many things only cost a lot because the manufacturer's profit margin is huge. That's true about anything clothing-related.
And if they are simultaneously the subject of renewed enforcement interest...
""" Night City was like a deranged experiment in social Darwinism, designed by a bored researcher who kept one thumb permanently on the fast-forward button. Stop hustling and you sank without a trace, but move a little too swiftly and you'd break the fragile surface tension of the black market; either way, you were gone, with nothing left of you but some vague memory in the mind of a fixture like Ratz, though heart or lungs or kidneys might survive in the service of some stranger with New Yen for the clinic tanks. """ - Neuromancer: William Gibson
I would think tracing the flow of bitcoins to them might be more productive, though that could be spread around quite a bit too.
You're right, though. There's some level at which they'd get nailed.
You're very naive if you think that SilkRoad is not running on servers rented anonymously with bitcoins, in a country outside of US/European jurisdiction.
If they are smart, they have multiple "real" identities set up to be ID'd first, and a plan to sterilize, evac and start over when the cover is blown.
But they have accomplished something that few people ever get to do. Pioneer a new kind of crime.
And that is precisely when Bitcoins will receive renewed focus from officials all over and g-men will step forth to somehow try to make operations involving Bitcoins illegal.
You don't need to get behind TOR to buy fake clothing (ioffer.com comes to mind, pretty sure there are tons of other sites around who would love to sell you fake clothing straight from a Chinese factory)
And why would you buy physical copies of pirated movies if you can get them for free?
BluRay market is 5-6 billion dollars. People buy them.
1. A layer of indirection a.k.a. finding someone who will receive mail for you without giving up your name.
2. Owning the distribution channel, and using addresses that are downstream of you while diverting your packages to their intended destination.
Note that if the USPS is involved, both of these are federal crimes...
Alternately, if you were alert enough at your mail fraud you could find a neighbor who is out of the house during the day and use their name and address, and intercept the package from their mailbox. This is, of course, a felony.
NZ: https://www.privatebox.co.nz
Canada: https://www.bufferbox.com/
2. Once the package is delivered, get to the apartment and tell the owner "Oh, I'm so sorry, I accidentally entered Apartment 123 in my order, instead of Apartment 223, which is where I actually live! I can haz package nao?" Most likely, they will not know the residents at Apartment 223.
3. In most cases, you will now have your package. (If they ask for some ID, you could always go "Sure, do you want me to get that first?", most people will then give you the package right there. If not, just leave and don't come back.)
Yes, this is a purely hypothetical idea, but it seems to me that it's pretty easy to come up with something relatively secure.
In other words, it will always be small. Bitcoin has almost no chance of becoming mainstream.