FBI busts Dread Pirate Roberts

[cali]

US authorities believe that 29-year-old Ross William Ulbricht, arrested on Wednesday, is Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR) - the administrator of the notorious Silk Road online marketplace.

It was an underground website where people from all over the world were able to buy drugs.

In the months leading up to Mr Ulbricht's arrest, investigators undertook a painstaking process of piecing together the suspect's digital footprint, going back years into his history of communicating with others online.

The detail of how the FBI has built its case was outlined in a court complaint document published on Wednesday.

<snip>

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24371894

It appears the Federal Bureau of Investigation has finally cracked down on Silk Road, the underground marketplace where users could buy cocaine, heroin, meth, and more using the virtual currency Bitcoin. The Verge has obtained a copy of the criminal complaint, civil forfeiture complaint, and protective order filed in the Southern District of New York against Ross Ulbricht, who is alleged to be the mastermind behind the site and the handle Dread Pirate Roberts.

Ulbricht is being charged with narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy. The site, which is only accessible through the anonymizing Tor network, has been pulled and replaced with an FBI notice. The Silk Road forums are still operating, suggesting they were hosted on a different server.

<snip>

Silk Road did $1.2 billion worth of business between February of 2011 and July of 2013, the FBI says, earning Dread Pirate Roberts $79.8 million in commissions using current Bitcoin rates. That number is difficult to pin down, however, because Bitcoin's price has fluctuated so much during that time. Silk Road had 957,079 registered users who did 1.2 million transactions between February of 2011 and July of 2013, the FBI says.

<snip>
http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/2/4794780/fbi-seizes-underground-drug-market-silk-road-owner-indicted-in-new

[Scootaloo]

1. $1.2 billion over two years? WOW!

I'm so glad that in those two years, we the taxpayer spent over sixty billion to crack these guys!

Remind me again, how much ransom have we paid to AIG since 2009?

[cantbeserious]

2. Stop Using Logic And Reason

eom

[geek tragedy]

3. Where do you get the $60 billion figure?

This was a serious crime ring.

[Scootaloo]

4. Total spending on the war on drugs this year: $30,869,000,000

Granted, that number will be higher by December 31.

Multiply by two years.

http://www.drugsense.org/cms/wodclock

And I'm not arguing that it wasn't a crime ring, or that they didn't need to be busted. But it's like spending a million bucks to bust a guy who nicked a $20 out of the register at the end of his shift.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

5. 30 effin billion. Just say blow.

[Warren DeMontague]

7. The drug war is a fucking farce.

Pour that money into treatment and accept that sometimes people are going to do things with their own bodies that the authorities don't like.

[Motown_Johnny]

6. Not the original Dread Pirate Roberts.. there have been many...