Federal agents infiltrated and shut down a website called “Silk Road” yesterday upon discovering that it was a billion dollar “sprawling black market bazaar,” in which hit men and drug dealers advertised their services, selling everything from murder, to heroin, to cocaine and methamphetamine.
The creator of the website was 29-year-old physicist Ross Ulbricht, also known as the “Dread Pirate Roberts,” or “DPR.” Ulbricht appeared in federal court in San Francisco Wednesday to face charges of narcotics trafficking, money laundering, computer hacking and soliciting murder-for-hire.
The reason Silk Road is getting so much coverage is that it was unlike any other drug-dealing site. Ross Ulbricht made an incredible amount of money in a considerably short amount of time by, not only engaging in a myriad of illegal services, but also resorting to extreme measures to protect his business.
Here are the ten craziest revelations of the Silk Road.
1. In just 30 months, the FBI estimates the site was able to generate $1.2 billion in sales and $80 million in commissions for Ulbricht alone.
2. The website operated through a special network of computers around the world that used heavily-complex algorithms to disguise each computer’s Internet address.
3. Costumers made transactions using digital currency bitcoin because it leaves no trail and can be stored in a personal account as private as one’s own wallet.
4. Ulbricht, who took his nickname from a character in the Rob Reiner classic “The Princess Bride,” literally controlled every aspect of the site, including programming, maintenance, customer service and accounting.
5. According to the FBI, the site sold “illegal drugs of nearly every variety.” FBI agents counted nearly 13,000 listings for items such as ecstasy, opioids, heroin, LSD and various prescription drugs.
6. The FBI also uncovered 159 listings for other illegal services, such as computer hacking, firearms, hit men-for-hire and stolen credit card information.
7. In 18 months, FBI analysts tracked over 1.2 million transactions involving nearly 147,000 buyers and over 4,000 vendors.
8. From his other online accounts, Ulbricht seemed to be a nerdy hippie with no malicious intentions whatsoever. These accounts repeatedly mention helping those in need and wanting to start a family.
9. More than once, Ulbricht arranged to have drug vendors threatening to expose his business and his clients murdered, once paying $80,000 to have a former employee killed.
10. It was this deal, however, that led him to get caught. The drug dealer he thought he was conspiring with was really an undercover agent, who produced false evidence of the murder to get Ulbricht to confess “I’m pissed that I had to kill him, but what’s done is done.… I just can’t believe he was so stupid. I just wish more people had some integrity.”
Top photo via Google +
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