Criminal Charges Against Agents Reveal Staggering Corruption in the Silk Road Investigation
Two of the law enforcement agents involved in the tangled multi-agency investigation into the Silk Road have been charged by the Department of Justice for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars (at the very least) in bitcoin. The criminal complaint against former DEA agent Carl Mark Force IV and former Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges alleges money laundering, wire fraud, theft of government property, and more. But more shockingly, it tells the story of a sprawling case tainted by an unbelievable web of corruption. A state’s witness took the fall for an agent’s theft, thus becoming the target for a murder-for-hire—a murder that was then faked by the same agent. The Silk Road case was compromised again and again as Force and Bridges allegedly took every opportunity to embezzle and steal money. With so much bitcoin on their hands, the two had to coax various bitcoin and payments companies to help convert their ill-gotten gains to dollars. When companies resisted, investigations were launched, subpoenas were issued, and civil forfeitures were sought in retaliation.
The investigation into Force and Bridges began around May 2014, nearly a year after the arrest of Ross Ulbricht. Ulbricht was convicted this February of operating the Silk Road marketplace under the moniker “the Dread Pirate Roberts.” The criminal complaint alleges that Force and Bridges not only managed to siphon off bitcoins into their personal accounts while conducting undercover operations on the Silk Road, but Force also adopted a series of different personas on the Silk Road that switched off between extorting Ulbricht/DPR and selling him information from inside the federal investigation. Under the handles “Nob” and “French Maid,” Force sold DPR information that he had supposedly acquired from a corrupt government agent, while under the handle “Death from Above,” he used information from inside the investigation to extort DPR for bitcoins.
Between 2012 and 2013, while Force was investigating the Silk Road, he deposited into his bank account about three times the amount of money he was making on his government salary. He also paid off the mortgage on his house, repaid a $22,000 government loan, wired $235,000 to an offshore account in Panama, and invested tens of thousands of dollars in real estate and stocks.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahjeong/2015/03/31/force-and-bridges/
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