The end of Silk Road
this story is absolutely crazy, when's the movie coming out?
FBI Arrests 29 Year Old Mastermind Of Billion Dollar Internet Drug BlackmarketWhat happened Wednesday at 3:15pm? After months of painstaking investigation, the FBI swooped in and arrested the long sought-after mastermind of this highly illegal anonymous drug marketplace. Who was this mastermind? Was it a secretive Russian hacker living in Moscow? A Chinese internet tycoon operating from a private yacht in international waters? Actually, it was a 29 year old American named Ross Ulbricht who operated most of his empire out of a San Francisco coffee shop. When he was arrested, he was actually using the free wifi at a public library.
$$$$$$
Here’s where the story gets completely insane: According to the indictment documents filed today in New York, the FBI was able to determine that over the last two years, SilkRoad processed $1.2 billion dollars worth of transactions. In other words, 9.5 million Bitcoins have flowed back and forth between SilkRoad buyers and sellers. What does that mean for Ross Ulbricht personally? Over that same time period, the FBI determined that Ulbricht collected some 600,000 Bitcoins in the form of his commission. How much are 600,000 Bitcoins worth?At today’s closing price, $78 million. At yesterday’s closing price? $90 million (the price of Bitcoins dropped sharply in the wake of Ulbricht’s arrest). When Bitcoins hit an all time peak value in April 2013 of $266 per coin, his virtual collection was worth $160 million. To give you some idea of how insane the market for Bitcoins has been recently, in the fall of 2011 when SilkRoad was founded, a single Bitcoin was worth just $2.
Just to re-iterare: 29 year old Ross Ulbricht earned nearly $80 million in commissions for maintaining and operating SilkRoad over the last two years.
of course he hired hitmen...
And the story gets crazier: As if operating a billion dollar illegal online narcotics marketplace wasn’t bad enough, the FBI alleges that Ulbricht hired at least two hitmen over the last 12 months to murder people who were threatening SilkRoad and his own personal anonymity. He didn’t know it at the time, but Ulbricht was already being closely watched by the FBI when he used $150,000 worth of Bitcoins to order a murder from a hitman he met online. The target was a former SilkRoad employee called “FriendlyChemist” who was threatening to release the identities of 5000 SilkRoad users in addition to outing Ulbricht as the mastermind of the whole operation unless he received a one time payment of $500,000.
http://topinfopost.com/2013/10/03/fbi-arrests-29-year-old-mastermind-of…
Nice, only about a week late.
It's a shame. His employee is definitely a piece of shit, but c'mon now.
The struggle's been real ever since
Whats really great about this is the commissions he was making. Dudes clearing over 8.15% commissions for doing nothing really.
eBay takes over 10% for essentially the same thing.
Yes but ebay is actually creating a marketplace. All this guy did was take an existing black market and make it blacker.
There is zero difference between eBay and Silk Road except one is for drugs. And murder for hire apparently.
Umm, what? This doesn't make any sense.
I'm not a drug user, but I am pro-Silk Road/Sheep Marketplace. Creating a highly transparent (through seller feedback/reputation) marketplace for drugs forces bad products out of the market and reduces the "shady" aspects of your stereotypical drug deal.
Silk Road is the Napster of the online drug trade. There are already replacements popping up, and later iterations will simply improve upon the established platform.
I still don't really understand what you mean. "Black market" simply refers to the fact that the products being traded are highly controlled/illegal. Are you trying to take the position that SR is bad because it makes prosecution of drug offenses more difficult, because if so - when did I become the WSO libertarian? If not, I don't see any benefit in the "face to face" meeting, especially since in that arrangement you are typical dealing with some sort of middle man (higher prices). I would rather see hundreds of positive feedback comments than take Joe Streetdealer, someone I would hopefully have minimal contact with, at their word. SR was also popular because it attracted more "sophisticated" distributors, many of whom would provide lab testing on their products.
I think the success of SR shows just how stupid the Drug War really is. Many of the worst aspects of illicit drugs are caused by the very fact that they are illegal.
Not sure I understand this. What he did is essentially the exact same thing Amazon/eBay did. Instead of facilitating selling iphone cases and books, however, it facilitated the illicit drug trade.
Same system, different products...
How'd I miss this?
I'm interested to see how this pans out. There's a lot I like about bitcoin but I thought this guy was a tool after reading the Forbes writeup.
"Six or eight FBI agents came in separately, dressed like anyone else, and then there was a crash. The librarians didn't know what was going on. They rushed over because they thought one of the patrons might have fallen over.
"Then they saw this man pushed against the window face first and someone said 'We're the FBI'."
lol
So did the hitmen finish the job?
http://www.businessinsider.com/silk-road-ross-ulbricht-alleged-murder-f…
DPR then contacted another use called "redandwhite," saying he'd like a "bounty" on "FriendlyChemist's" head, the complaint said. 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."
Here was that update from "redandwhite": "Your problem has been taken care of ... Rest easy though, because he won't be blackmailing anyone again. Ever."
They sent him a pic of the dead chemist. But when the FBI checked with the police in Canada where the dude lived and everywhere around, there were no reports of any murders or accidental deaths within a few days of when it allegedly happened.
Dude got tooled probably. Unless they drove him way out. Which is unlikely because they quoted him on $300K clean, $150K dirty and dude was fucking haggling with them saying how he paid $80 last time and finally settled on dirty. Chemist had a wife and kids too, so chances are DPR got tooled like the little bitch tool he is.
An acquaintance knows some people who regularly bought lots of pharmaceuticals and experimental hallucinogens on SR and they got calls from local PD. Only really big buyers and sellers will likely be prosecuted though. There is talk of a mass fining of smaller users though.
They have shit tons of IPs. I forgot the number. I read the search warrant papers last week. That's a lot of revenue with very little expense.
@wannabeaballer A stack of forged passports and shit got intercepted going to his home. Don't shit where you eat. Dude could afford a burner apartment.
I heard of this website only a couple months ago, but sounds like you had to be pretty tech savvy to be able to access it.
You don't, there are instructions to follow. I checked it out just to see what the fuss was about. Then we found out the NSA was watching everyone's shit and I decided maybe it'd be best not to visit sites like that...
What exactally did this guy do wrong? I wonder about the "hit job". The government has shady methods of dealing with people who dare to stand up to them. Like this guy:
http://rt.com/usa/qwest-ceo-nsa-jail-604/
How well did prohibition turn out?
I think that's a bad comparison. Alcohol was socially normal when prohibition went through. Drugs haven't been socially normal for a long time. I do agree with you on the topic, just against this comparison.
Ultimately I think weed is going to be legal within the next 10 years. It's possible other drugs will follow in the next 20-30. I do have some faith in our generation on things like this.
Facilitating hits is "doing nothing wrong"? Man, smart people can be really obtuse sometimes. This "who am I to judge?" worship of guys like this completely misses the mark when you talk about facilitating murder. It should be obvious even if it kills the freedom buzz.
What is this even in response to? Where are people worshiping DPR? What the fuck is "facilitating hits" (sounds like it's pulled straight from Reefer Madness)?
No, facilitating the illegal drug trade is doing nothing wrong. Creating a place where people can buy/sell products/services with complete anonymity is doing nothing wrong.
Hiring a hitman IS doing something wrong.
Really? Facilitating illegal drug trades is not doing anything wrong?
You can have your freedom and anarchist naive views, but people cannot be trusted with shit like SR, sometimes a little liberty needs to be given up so that the few psychos out there cannot hire hitmen anonymously.
duff - I support that type of "facilitating hits."
Guys, we'll have to agree to disagree. I won't demonize creating a site to sell some pot or Xanax or whatever. But yes, this marketplace facilitates the ability to do bad things because of the anonymity. If it didn't, people would just order hitmen on eBay.
My only point is that personally, I would not consider the owner of that service to be completely guilt free, at least morally. But to each his own.
Fair enough, but I think the media has made it out to be worse than it actually is:
No, that's not fair enough. This guy's essentially saying that he doesn't think anything that allows people to exchange goods/services shouldn't be anonymous because they might buy/sell something bad.
I'm guessing you're one of those people that thinks the government should be able to watch everyone all the time because, "if you're not doing anything illegal, what do you have to hide?"
Bull. Shit.
The drug war has failed - and was fought on false pretenses. It's just one large republican defense contractor welfare program now. Legal painkillers now kill more Americans than heroin and blow combined. Decriminalize across the board, legalize/regulate and tax cannabis. Done. Hundreds of billions saved. I mean it's not like the government is bankrupt or anything.
This. Violence related to mexican drug wars and gang wars will go down too.
in our lifetime do you ever see this happening?
I see legalization of cannabis more likely than not actually.
It is already legal to possess small amounts weed for recreational use under state law in Colorado and Washington. I see the medical marijuana trend increasing as well. Eventually the floodgates will open.
Broad decriminalization of possession of small amounts of "harder" drugs could come too, but I'm much more skeptical of this ever happening - despite the results in Portugal being considered a success.
The drug war has also held back medical research in many regards. Clinical studies using controlled substances are extremely difficult to do. I'm thinking along the lines of MDMA for PTSD and depression, psilocybin mushrooms for recurrent migraines, etc.
This is the thing that pisses me off. Good news? A doctor in England (I believe) has secured the ability to experiment with some of these drugs.
Kinda off topic, but when I picture my retirement from everything I picture the wife and I in our rocking chairs on the porch passing a bag of shrooms back and forth and laughing our asses off at the mailman. True story.
I like the way you think
I wish I had his job
Rerum ad provident quidem vitae eveniet minima quia dolores. Id suscipit cumque illum omnis. Voluptates debitis dolorem a dolorem. Deleniti labore unde sed beatae omnis architecto eum nostrum. Qui aliquam qui et architecto totam. Nobis sequi sit vitae.
Non aut enim et odio illo ducimus expedita. Nobis occaecati pariatur officia nulla quas tenetur ut. Occaecati voluptas officia rem in quae expedita.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Et est eos quia soluta ea. Aut id rerum fugit provident. Illum voluptatem aliquam fugiat dolor. Distinctio laborum non non maxime.
Dolorem ab voluptatum dolor quam voluptate quo sint. Ut id sit officiis quia ut eos enim. Reiciendis assumenda voluptas adipisci. Sed quisquam itaque nihil eum rerum sunt.