The case we present today began when our fellow cleaner @mathowl spotted the account @steemoon
He quickly realized there was a close association with the account @always1success since in the last 31 days the incoming votes to that account from @always1success amount to 95.2%
And the outgoing votes from @always1success to that account in the same period represent 31.6%
Upon initial examination of the @always1success blog @mathowl suspected something was up with the account, so he commented about it to the @stemflagrewards admin and cleaner @steemseph who in turn requested from the Jaguar Team a deep investigation of the account.
The account @always1success was created on July of 2016 and the account @steemoon on November of 2016
All in all there are 1513 votes from @always1success to the @steemoon account
Source
A very curious fact is that almost every transfer ever made from the @steemoon account was sent to @always1success
With the exception of 4 transfers that were made to bidbots
Source
When the @always1success blog was browsed a very curious pattern was readily observed
This seemed extremely suspicious, so we went ahead and checked the interactions between the user and @steemcleaners
Nothing was there at the time, apparently if something was up with this user it had remained undetected by SteemCleaners for over 2 years.
The Jaguar Team then began checking the images in the posts for matches in the net, hoping to find one of the "friends" of the user to verify the claims. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of images were checked.
Not a single match was found.
We realized then that the user was using images from a site that was not indexed by reverse search engines so we changed the approach. The assumption was that the user was reverse checking the images at the time of posting to ensure no match was there to be found, but he could not ensure that would continue to be the case after he posted them. So the approach was shifted to check high quality photographs that would be more likely to be replicated out of the unindexed sites by fans or by the authors themselves....
Bingo
After checking several hundred more pictures 3 sources were found:
This image posted 3 months ago was found in a lower quality in the form of an avatar
Source
This other image posted 11 months ago was found in a Russian site where the author copied some of her photographs
Source
And this other image posted 11 months ago was found reposted 3 months ago in Pixabay
Source
2 of the authors were contacted:
Our SteemCleaners Liaison @guiltyparties was informed of the case and a comment was made by them.
Engagement
With this evidence in the sleeve and awaiting response from the authors the user was engaged
A response was obtained
Source
The user was then asked for evidence supporting his claims
Source
In view of the nonsensical reply by the user engagement was escalated
Source
A user then appeared defending @always1success
Source
Coincidentally, it turns out that user joined in June of 2017 and has made 0 posts to this day, the user only comments.
Also coincidentally, the user has made 325 comments on posts by @always1success
Source
And out of those, 228 have been voted by @always1success
Source
Jackpot
Finally, we got a reply from one of the authors of the photographs
Update: Thanks to the help of @whatsup the account @anastasiavasilc has been created for Anastasia so she can start posting her photographs in Steem and so that @always1success can hear from her right here in our beloved blockchain.
This is Jaguar Force,
Reporting directly from the Jungle.
Onwards!