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Maryland Indictment Says Silk Road Founder Tried To Arrange Murder of Employee
Robotron23 writes "Further charges have been made against Silk Road founder Ross William Ulbricht, aka 'Dread Pirate Roberts'. Yesterday saw the shutdown of Silk Road, a website Ulbricht founded which specialized in the sale of illegal items such as recreational drugs. As well as paying for a hit on a forum member, Ulbricht later requested an undercover agent murder an arrested employee of Silk Road, terming it 'the right move.' Upon receiving staged photos of torture and eventually the corpse, Ulbricht paid in full."
It sounds like they're ALWAYS undercover agents.
Eh, not really. Hobbyist speculators enjoy it because of its volatility, it's a relatively easy way to pick up a few extra bucks here and there, but that also means it's absolutely rubbish for its intended use as a currency.
Yeah, you can trade them for other currencies or use them to send money to people for anything. This means you could buy my chair in bitcoins if you wanted and I could then change those bitcoins to USD if I wanted.
No different than any other currency. I am 100% sure more drugs and murders are purchased with USD and EURO than bitcoins.
Yes, but murdering is actually wrong, while selling contraband is not.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
No different than any other currency. I am 100% sure more drugs and murders are purchased with USD and EURO than bitcoins.
For drug dealing, money laundering and assorted cybercrimes I suspect that as a % of transactions, that bitcoin has other currencies beat. Bitcoin was being used by Silk Road and doubtless criminals on other sites / forums trade in bitcoin as an easy way to move money around without detection.
On one level Bitcoin owners should rejoice that this criminality is being snuffed out. But on the other, it also demonstrates the volatility of this currency when the exchange rate takes a shit every time something like this happens.
saying I am old enough to drink alcohol and use it that way, that's a victimless crime.
Until you kill someone because you got drunk at the bar or purchased from a distributor which wouldn't have happened if you hadn't used a fake ID.
Also, using a fake ID as you described might be considered fraudulent use for purpose of establishing a false identification but definitely using a fake ID is a crime.
So using the above, you've committed 2 crimes: false identification and depending on how it is phrased in your state, vehicular homicide, manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide while driving under the influence, negligent homicide and several other variations:
Criminal listings.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
On one level Bitcoin owners should rejoice that this criminality is being snuffed out.
99% of what occurred on Silk Road was activity that should have never been illegal in the first place. If two consenting adults engage in a transaction that does not harm any third party, then that is none of your damn business. One of the good things about bitcoin is that it makes economic repression more difficult. No one who believes in the advancement of human freedom should "rejoice" about the end of Silk Road.