FBI Seizes Deep Web Black Market Silk Road, Arrest Owner

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FBI Seizes Deep Web Black Market Silk Road, Arrest Owner | TechCrunch

The feds have caught up to the Silk Road. The underground website long known for drug trafficking was seized by the FBI who also arrested the owner on three criminal counts. Prosecutors charged Ross William Ulbricht with one count each of narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, according to a court filing.

Silk Road has long existed in the corner of the Internet dubbed Deep Web and accessible only through the seemingly secure Tor Network. Launched in 2011, the site quickly gained notoriety for its market place of drugs and guns. Silk Road became the Amazon of illegal things.

An upstart site, Atlantis, aimed to add a bit of whimsy and Web 2.0 marketing pizzazz to the same markets. It closed last month.

As the court documents note, the owner of Silk Road, Ross William Ulbricht, intentionally and knowingly violated the US’s narcotics laws. The document, available here, reads:

From in or about 2011, up to and including in or about September 2013, ROSS WILLIAM ULBRICHT, a/k/a “Dread Pirate Roberts,” a/k/a “DPR,” a/k/a “Silk Road,” the defendant, owned and operated an underground website, known as “Silk Road,” that provided a platform for drug dealers around the world to sell a wide variety of controlled substances via the Internet.
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But that’s just the start of Ulbricht’s troubles. He is also charged with hacking conspiracy and money laundering. The site is currently down, seized by the FBI. It should be interesting, however, to see how the government handles this hydra of an organization. The vast majority of interactions on the Silk Road are anonymous, performed using Bitcoin transfers between parties and set up in secure email exchanges.

According to the court documents, law enforcement agents made over 100 individual undercover purchases through Silk Road, obtaining Schedule I and II drugs, including ecstasy, cocaine, heroin, LSD and others.

More as we get it.
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Silk Road Ross Ulbricht Alleged Murder For HIre - Business Insider


Ross Ulbricht — the alleged founder of Silk Road, a marketplace for buying illegal drugs — allegedly tried to take a hit out on one of the site's users, according to a new criminal complaint. He allegedly offered 1,670 bitcoins (worth $150,000) for the job.

Ulbricht, 29, also known as "Dread Pirate Roberts," was arrested today when authorities seized 26,000 bitcoins worth roughly $3.2 million. Here's the first part about his alleged attempted hit:
silk.png

Silk Road
US Department of Justice
In March of this year a Silk Road user called "FriendlyChemist" began sending Ulbricht the threatening messages, according to the complaint. "Friendly Chemist" told DPR he would publish the names and addresses of Silk Road customers unless he gave him $500,000, according to authorities. Here's one of the threatening messages:

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DPR then allegedly contacted another use called "redandwhite," informing him that he would like a "bounty" on "FriendlyChemist's" head. They allegedly agreed on a price of 1,670 Bitcoins. Redandwhite then wrote DPR back and said "I received the payment ... We know where he is. He'll be grabbed tonight. I'll update you."

There's not a record of DPR actually killing anybody. But the FBI's complaint said the exchanges demonstrate "DPR's intention to solicit a murder-for-hire" — with Bitcoins.
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Also, from his LinkedIn profile:

I love learning and using theoretical constructs to better understand the world around me. Naturally therefore, I studied physics in college and worked as a research scientist for five years. I published my findings in peer reviewed journals five times over that period, first on organic solar cells and then on EuO thin-film crystals. My goal during this period of my life was simply to expand the frontier of human knowledge.

Now, my goals have shifted. I want to use economic theory as a means to abolish the use of coercion and agression amongst mankind. Just as slavery has been abolished most everywhere, I believe violence, coercion and all forms of force by one person over another can come to an end. The most widespread and systemic use of force is amongst institutions and governments, so this is my current point of effort. The best way to change a government is to change the minds of the governed, however. To that end, I am creating an economic simulation to give people a first-hand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systemic use of force.
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Now we find out how big a part of the bitcoin market cap silk road was...
 
Anonymous, wikileaks, and now the silk road have pretty much been dismantled by the US .gov; one would be left wondering what their next target will be. Bitcoin anyone?
 
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