I've not really followed Dark Web news / drama / happenings outside of what maintainers of code like Tor, I2P, etc actually publish and of course they never comment on things like this. Just bug fixes, improvements, plans, and discussion about the network itself and not the content on it.

So what's the consensus on this guy? A Fed? Lucky? Too smart to get caught so he's back to do it 'right'? I had never heard of AlphaBay until recently when I saw on /r/i2p that the site was supposed to be on the I2P network this time instead of Tor. Is that true?

And yeah, Thai prison isn't anyplace a foreigner would want to wind up... South East Asia isn't really a place anyone should go to fuck around with drugs or anything trafficking related. Your stay at the "Bangkok Hilton" isn't going to be very comfortable.