Crackdown on Silk Road, the underground drug market – The Verge

Trump pardons Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht

2025-01-21T20:17:14-05:00

On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump issued a pardon to Ross Ulbricht, who ran the dark web marketplace Silk Road under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts." Ulbricht has been serving a life sentence without parole since 2015, when he was convicted of multiple charges, including the distribution of narcotics.

The Silk Road marketplace, which was only accessible through the Tor network, became one of the most prevalent early commercial uses of Bitcoin. Buyers and sellers traded in illicit drugs, forged passports, and more.

In the intervening years, Ulbricht became a cause celebrè for a certain segment of the right-wing, particularly in …

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Alleged top Silk Road adviser extradited to US to face charges

2018-06-18T11:25:14-04:00

The Silk Road has been defunct for nearly five years after Ross Ulbricht, who founded the dark web staple, was apprehended, arrested, and given a life prison sentence without parole. Now, the US courts have caught up with Roger Clark, Ulbricht's alleged mentor, adviser, and confidant in all things related to the dark web marketplace. This past Friday, the US Attorney's office announced Clark's extradition to the United States to face newly unsealed charges for his role in Silk Road's operation.

The indictment states that Clark (also known as "Variety Jones," "VJ," and "Cimon") was a "real mentor" to Ulbricht over the course of Silk Road's o …

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Ross Ulbricht’s defense files appeal to have Silk Road convictions thrown out

2016-01-13T10:28:03-05:00

In a massive appeal brief filed yesterday, Ross Ulbricht's attorney asked a court to overturn the conviction of his client, who was found guilty last year of orchestrating online drug bazaar the Silk Road.

Lays out seven points for appeal

In May, Ulbricht, guilty of operating under the online persona of Dread Pirate Roberts, was sentenced to life in prison. His attorney now argues that the court made missteps during the trial, and that Ulbricht is entitled to a another day in court. The attorney lays out seven points in the appeal brief, focusing on how the court's conduct unfairly stacked the deck against Ulbricht.

The point outlined most …

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A Silk Road task force agent has pled guilty to stealing $820,000 in bitcoin

2015-09-01T15:03:10-04:00

One of the federal officers charged with investigating the Silk Road marketplace has pled guilty to obstruction of justice and money laundering. US Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges was part of the interagency Baltimore team investigating the online marketplace and took over an administrator account on the service as part of the investigation. Ultimately, Bridges used the account to reset passwords and steal roughly 20,000 bitcoin from various wallets on the service, ultimately redeeming them for $820,000. Bridges' sentencing hearing is set for December 7th.

Bridges acted in concert with Carl Mark Force, a fellow secret service agent who p …

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Ross Ulbricht found guilty of Silk Road conspiracy charges

2015-02-04T15:49:47-05:00

Today in a federal courthouse in Manhattan, Ross Ulbricht has been found guilty of charges stemming from his role in the founding and operation of the Silk Road. After nearly four hours of deliberation, the jury found Ulbricht guilty on all seven counts, including charges of narcotics conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, and engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise. The Silk Road offered a platform for quasi-anonymous transactions, shielded by Tor's anonymity network and the transaction-masking properties of Bitcoin, and hosted more than $100 million in drug transactions before it was shut down by law enforcement in October of 2013.

…

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Mt. Gox CEO says he isn’t Silk Road’s Dread Pirate Roberts

2015-01-15T22:19:05-05:00

Mark Karpeles, the CEO of stricken Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, has denied any involvement in the online black market Silk Road.

Earlier today in the trial of Ross Ulbricht, accused of running Silk Road under the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts, a DHS agent said under cross-examination that Karpeles had been a prime suspect in the investigation before attention fell on Ulbricht. Lawyers for the defense implied, if not outright argued, that Karpeles was the real Dread Pirate Roberts and had wanted to artificially inflate the value of Bitcoin.

"I have nothing to do with Silk Road."

But Karpeles has ridiculed the suggestion in an email to Motherboa …

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The Silk Road trial just took a crazy twist implicating Mt. Gox

2015-01-15T16:15:13-05:00

What if the real mastermind behind the Silk Road drug market wasn't Ross Ulbricht, who's currently charged with running the site, but Mark Karpeles, the CEO of the ill-fated Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox? According to new developments in the trial today, it's not as crazy as it sounds. DHS agent Jared Deryegnan admitted under cross examination that the agency had suspected Karpeles of running the site and had prepared an affidavit to search Karpeles' email as part of the Silk Road investigation. One of Karpeles' companies had registered "Silkroadmarket.org," leading investigators to consider him as a suspect. Other evidence ultimately implicated …

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International crackdown on online drug markets leads to 17 arrests, multiple shutdowns

2014-11-07T10:08:39-05:00

The international law enforcement push that led to the arrest of alleged Silk Road 2 operator Blake Benthall has also shut down several other online drug and illegal goods marketplaces and made over a dozen arrests. This morning, Europol revealed the extent of Operation Onymous, a mission carried out with the help of Eurojust, the FBI, the US Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies. According to a statement, 17 sellers and site admins were arrested, and around 410 hidden services ("darknet" servers that are accessible only through a browser using privacy software Tor) were shut down. The operation seized $1 million in bitcoins, t …

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FBI and Homeland Security shut down Silk Road 2, arrest alleged operator

2014-11-06T12:19:38-05:00

Silk Road 2, a replacement for the notorious online drug bazaar that went dark in October of 2013, has been seized in a joint action involving the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and European law enforcement. The hidden site and its forums now display only the splash page below, and an FBI spokesperson confirmed with The Verge that the domain had in fact been shut down. In a public statement, the FBI and Homeland Security said that they had also arrested suspected operator Blake Benthall ("Defcon") in California on Wednesday.

26-year-old Benthall had allegedly "controlled and overseen all aspects of Silk Road 2.0" since December 2013, …

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US government selling nearly $18 million in bitcoin seized from Silk Road

2014-06-13T09:32:32-04:00

Looking to buy some Bitcoin? The US government has plenty to sell. It's put up for auction the more than 29,000 bitcoins that it seized from the underground drug sales site Silk Road earlier this year, all of which are currently valued at close to $18 million. The auction will occur and close later this month, and bidders won't be required to purchase the entire, expensive chunk. Instead, it'll be broken up into 10 chunks, most of which are worth about $1.8 million, and interested parties can bid on as many chunks as they want.

Notably, these bitcoins do not include those taken from Silk Road's alleged leader, Ross Ulbricht, who was arreste …

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