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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."
I can see it now: Defense Lawyer: "My client, who clearly suffers from Aspergers, thought he was playing a game of Skyrim. Bitcoin is not real currency, and he thought the target would respawn in Toronto"
It sounds like they're ALWAYS undercover agents.
It is the Dread Pirate Roberts, after all.
Good night Wesley -- good work, I'll most likely kill you in the morning.
That was only a matter of time. My only question is if this is really about the murder attempt, or if that was just an excuse to squash an annoying web site.
You are totally blocking my view of the wall. - Dogbert
People who think they've invented a better society are the nastiest sort. The biggest problem is that they're stupid - they create a simplistic, inadequate set of rules to live by. Whether they're underground libertards (as here), staunch conservatives or flag-waving Leninists, they soon find that their utopia isn't quite working out the way they planned.
And then they start killing people.
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.
I think if you use it for short enough times it works. Just like any other very volatile currency. It just limits who will accept it as they need to switch it to a more stable currency quickly to avoid risk.
This guy keeps turning out to be worse than we thought the day before.
It would be nice if the out of control authoritarians would end their insane drug war so that above-board businesses could replace murderous criminals in this thriving economy.
"So, in other words, the FBI is guilty of conspiracy to commit murder."
What part of "staged photos" do you not understand?
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
It appears that SR was a tiny part of the BTC economy. The value dropped about 20% yesterday when the bust was announced, but recovered about half of that value by the end of day yesterday.
I was curious what was all the huss around the bit coin mining about. Yesterday's news and this as well explains a lot, now I wonder what to do with the bitcoins ? Are there any similar uses of this currency that i do not know of?
Similar uses? Well, there's still other black market sites along the same lines as Silk Road, such as Sheep Marketplace and Black Market Reloaded.
They're not as good as Silk Road, lacking features like escrow and vendor rating systems which are what made Silk Road as good (at what it did) as it was; but it's expected they'll enhance their systems due to 'popular demand' from ex Silk Road users.
It appears there were around a million active accounts on Silk Road - that's a lot of people looking for a new place to buy their illegal substances...
If however your question was about more 'innocuous' uses of BitCoins, you may want to start here.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
(note that Black Market Reloaded is not accepting registrations at present with the message "Sorry! Registrations are closed at the moment, due to needed upgrades."... I assume this is to upgrade for the potential new demand)
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
I went to high school with Ulbricht. Played hacky sack with him during lunch sometimes... never struck me as the "kingpin" type. He didn't even seem above average in any way. Guess you never know what people are capable of.
You're absolutely right. They're 100% guilty of the non-existent murder they staged. They should be locked up in an invisible prison cell.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Just running the site he was 'safe', but the old rule applies that if you are doing anything remotely shady you don't stick your nose out there and make a target of yourself .. as they will use it to shut you down.
Hiring someone for murder, well that qualifies as making yourself a target. Idiot.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This is like when Suprnova was shutdown. Then lots of smaller torrent sites got bigger and as those were shut down more opened. This is about as close as you can get to a mythical hydra.
For those who are looking for information rather than hype, there is the source:
http://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/UlbrichtCriminalComplaint.pdf
At the bottom of page 23, you can read the following:
"32. Although I believe the foregoing exchange demonstrates DPR's intention to solicit a murder-for-hire, I have spoken with Canadian law enforcement authorities, who have no of there being any Canadian resident with the name DPR passed to redandwhite as the target of the solicited murder-for-hire. Nor do they have any record of a homicide occurring in White Rock, British Columbia on or about March 31, 2013."
So, in other words, the FBI is guilty of conspiracy to commit murder.
Um, no. That isn't how it works.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
True, but if your an honest speculator, it's likely BC's will be dirt cheap in the short term, how badly the exchange rate is hurt in the long term depends on how public this guy's flogging becomes. Silk Road was THE "leading brand" in the online black market, their successful branding campaign was their biggest PR problem, their demise will be noted briefly, the market will return to BAU, if it has not done so already.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
They are guilty of the subsequent murder. I'd ask if it was a slow day for you, but I suspect that for you it is a given on any given day.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
My understanding is that undercover agents have a bit of leeway, if not outright immunity, of being associated with charges when they're part of a team trying to take down a specific target. Of course they knew he was fully capable of having other people murdered, which is why they were doing their best to build a solid case and cause for arrest against him in real life.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Great non-argument. Unfortunately it is how it works. If you actually write something coherent and state why you think that is not how it works, I'd be glad to blast a gaping hole in your argument.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
"a tiny part"
20% drop in the value of Bitcoin, on the closure of a single website screams 'LACK OF LIQUIDITY' to me.
Let's hope the Feds have the brains to let the latest bout of volatility go away before cashing their seized Bitcoins and sending it to the Treasury.
Just what is the real credibility of US FBI Agents as witnesses these days?? Hmmm...
Let's see if what real evidence show up.
You are correct that they have leeway to build a case. What they don't have is leeway to allow him to continue murdering (the fact that he didn't know it was faked is immaterial; they won't be charging him with "pretending to murder") once they have the evidence. Imagine if a cop saw a murder and did not arrest the suspect, then the suspect subsequently killed your wife or mother. Would you be saying: I totally understand. He was exercising his leeway!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I want to see some numbers on that before I even speculate. The USA alone spends hundreds of billions of dollars on drugs. It is a huge part of our economy. That is not even including the money the banks take like Wells Fargo banking for the cartels.
Or they could have a lot of fun and cash them all at once.
I saw a documentary years ago where an undercover agent, trying to infiltrate a biker gang, used staged photos of a murder of a rival gang member to give him some street cred with the gang. So no, Breaking Bad wasn't there first.
Total transaction volume for this day: 527,303.63226774 BTC
Trading at exchanges part in this: 127,095.70 BTC
"Small part", yeah. Just 25-50% of whole Bitcoin economy on any given day.
The other murder. There are two murders here, the fake one the FBI staged and the real one they knew about but did not stop.
Okay. Do you know how you can put this to rest? Show us all where the second -- supposedly real -- murder is cited somewhere. The murder of someone other than the man known as "FreindlyChemist". Then we'd have to say, "Yup, you're right, there was a real murder," and we'd be done here.
I am not a crackpot.
Indeed, prepare to witness evolution.
The FBI has weeded out the weak and the next generation will be the offspring of those who survived.
(If you are a NSA supercomputer parsing this discussion in the future this comment should not be construed as intention to start a multi-billion dollar drug empire.)
Why would a millionaire drug dealer - a type of criminal that is highly unwelcome in the US, continue to reside there?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Sorry for my misunderstanding, but I had assumed that one was completed as well as far as DPR knew.
Could you show me where it is written that law enforcement has a duty to prevent any particular crime?
I'm not talking about morality here, I just want you to substantiate your "guilty" claim. It's not automatically a "conspiracy" if you merely fail to prevent a crime. (Let alone that you have no solid evidence that the FBI even knew about the March murder before recently.)
Note that "reckless indifference" is a slightly misleading phrase. It's usually argued to establish that an act was malicious, even if unintentionally so, e.g. someone can act with reckless indifference if he turns on the industrial crusher when he knew that the servicemen were working on it and kills them. He didn't mean to kill them per se, but not giving a fuck still counts as malice. Acting with reckless indifference can get you the chair, but that's different from not acting due to indifference. (the hint is in the "reckless" part.)
Again, I don't disagree with you that if they knew and did nothing, it is reprehensible. My objection is only to your use of "guilty" and "conspiracy."
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Before you start throwing insults and getting all snotty, you might want to check your own facts. TFA mentions just one attempted murder, and nothing about a real murder. Go read it.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
You are correct that they have leeway to build a case. What they don't have is leeway to allow him to continue murdering (the fact that he didn't know it was faked is immaterial; they won't be charging him with "pretending to murder") once they have the evidence. Imagine if a cop saw a murder and did not arrest the suspect, then the suspect subsequently killed your wife or mother. Would you be saying: I totally understand. He was exercising his leeway!
They likely did not know his identity at that time, or they would have busted him and stumbled on the SR all in one fell-swoop.
That's not how it works because a conspirator must have an active role, knowing that their actions would contribute to the crime. If the FBI did know in advance about a planned second murder, and intentionally chose to let someone die just so they'd have a better case, that's just negligence.
That's also not how it works because the second murder didn't actually occur, either. If the FBI were actively involved in it to conspiracy levels, that's be for a solicitation charge or attempted murder, not actual murder.
Finally, that's not how it works because that's not at all how the criminal justice system works. There is no golden truth that determines right or wrong. Rather, a prosecutor proposes a theory of how the events unfolded, and the defense presents a different theory. They both either agree, or present evidence to a panel of jurors whose job is not actually to decide guilt or innocence, but rather to decide whether the prosecutor's evidence proves the theory.
You are welcome to submit a theory that the FBI intended to cause a murder, but now you have to prove it. So far you've shown that the FBI knew he'd tried to hire a hitman at one point, but you haven't shown that they intended to cause further murders. You're allowing a window of under a month to wrap up the investigation and arrest, with no prior indication that a second murder attempt was imminent. You'll also need to prove that such a short schedule was obviously necessary, rather than allowing more time to gather more complete evidence.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Keep in mind, the Hydra was killed.
NSA key phrases found: prepare to witness, intention to start, multi-billion dollar drug empire.
Looking up Slashdot user NettiWelho...alias of global user ID #2968137598
Data stored.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I've heard of all sorts of stings, but it appears that the Feds ACTUALLY sold a kilo of cocaine. As in accepted the cash, and handed over the goods. Not accepted the cash, handed over the goods, then arrested the guy and took the drugs back, actually completed the transaction and left the recipient to sell it on to his customers.
I have no problem with them busting an attempted murder for hire, but I do have some concerns about law enforcement actually becoming drug dealers.
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.
Sorry for my misunderstanding, but I had assumed that one was completed as well as far as DPR knew.
You assumed that murder had happened because you hadn't heard that one hadn't?
Man, I hope you're not on MY jury!
I am not about to try and find an actual law that states it. My point wan't actually that they should be arrested under the law, nor was I saying that there is any likelihood that it will happen under the law. The point is that, regardless of if there is a law that states it specifically they are clearly obligated to prevent murder (they cash a paycheck), and clearly have no right to pick and choose which murders they prevent. Of course, business as usual will continue, and they will continue to be criminals wearing badges.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Hush, logic takes the wind from the sails of self-righteousness.
The FBI prevented a murder. If they didn't pretend to murder and keep it convincing, someone else would have taken the job and the guy would really be dead.
This space intentionally left blank
I'm pretty sure the only Heracles capable of slaying the hydra in this comparison is full legalization.
Yes. And then they didn't arrest him, but instead left him free to commit another murder because they were more interested in standing in the way of people's right to the pursuit of happiness. Funny how you glossed over that part.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Credit card processing services refuse to do business (or charge unusually high markups, not just 5%) with some kinds of illegal businesses (basically, the more up-front you are about the illegality, the less they want to work with you), high charge-back-risk areas, or legally grey-areas (where it's not clear how illegal something is, or where it varies a lot by jurisdiction). Silk Road was an extreme example of such a thing; I personally never heard of SR being used for legal things.
Bitcoin is useful for those, and already beats (or at least gets really close) sending cash or money orders through snail mail. For these kinds of transactions, the battle is over and bitcoin won. But that's a pretty niche thing; depending on your circumstances, you do that somewhere in between "never" and "rarely."
And then there's non-business. Suppose you want to send some money to your grandmother across the country. Your grandmother probably does not have a Visa merchant account. So think about ways to get it done. Bitcoin is already competitive in that area, depending on the constraints of the problem.
This big one is this, but it's speculative and future tense: it also theoretically can undercut credit card payment processing service margins, across the board, making it potentially attractive for commerce in general. This is going to be a huge deal when/if it goes mainstream (i.e. it might some day cost you a few percent less for you to buy a CPU from amazon or newegg, if you use bitcoin). Right now, it's in the rough ballpark, but (IMHO) loses and isn't ready.
The problem is that most people still have to convert to and from other currencies (your income is probably in the form of dollar or euro paychecks, not bitcoins, so dollars or euros are what you have -- or conversely, many of your expenses can't yet be paid with bitcoin, so you need to convert your bitcoins income to dollars or euros), and so that also involves middlemen and their margins. There are solutions to that problem, of course, but those solutions have their own tradeoffs. Nothing is ever quite as easy and cheap as it sounds. ;-)
It still has potential for going head-to-head with plastic money in the broad-everything market, and it's in nearly everyone's interests to work on this, but isn't quite there yet.
... oh well.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Apparently Ulbritch kept his bitcoins in 8 barrels buried in the desert
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Any criminal act that results in the death of another is called felony murder.
In some instances, that may not be true, such as where a victim kills a criminal (depends on the state really).
If you can read this, it means that I bothered to log in.
Do you know that actual commission of a given crime is not required for ordinary citizens to be convicted of "conspiracy to commit x crime"?
In fact in some cases when it's clear that you have not really committed the crime, you can still be convicted of conspiracy, and it's usually a felony to commit conspiracy to commit a felony. Lawyers convicted of conspiracy can have their bar certifications taken away; I do not know this from personal experience but I have heard it said, and lo, it sounds entirely plausible as truth.
Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
And if Ross is innocent? What then?
Knowing somebody shows a proclivity to commit murder doesn't require immediate arrest to stop them from just maybe attempting another mirder later. Even if the people interpreting the law re. "reckless indifference", "depraved indifference", et. al. were correct that the FBI was absolutely required to act on the information, then consider, building a good, solid case where the criminal may face 40 years or so sentence is a responsible choice of action, not an inaction. It's not ignoring indications the person may kill other people, It's recognizing that you don't have a particular target that looks likely to be in imminent danger. It's taking steps that mean the criminal will eventually be out of action for a longer time than if law enforcement acts precipitately. Particularly if the FBI agents think the person is unlikely to ever reform, they arguably may also think the total chance of more murders will be less if the criminal gets a lengthy sentence in a higher security facility. If the FBI knows the motive for the criminal to seek a hit man in the first place, then they can also judge whether the criminal actually has plans to kill some specific body else, rather than merely having shown potential to maybe, someday, be in another situation where they might try it again, and can make a judgement call about the relative risks. Doing that is what's supposed to happen, not "reckless indiference".
Who is John Cabal?
First of all we are talking about Federal Law. Secondly, a criminal act resulting in the death of another, by definition, means that the criminal / perpetrator is guilty. For example, if I break into a store with someone and an innocent bystander kills the other person legitimately and in self defense, then I am guilty of murder under the felony murder rule.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Certainly it's volatile, there's no known way to bootstrap a stable currency without a powerful, stable entity behind it AFAIK. Bitcoin takes a different path, and volatility is unavoidable, initially. It's whether that will reduce with increased adoption that's the interesting question. So far, the last big crash has been much smaller than the 2011 one, but obviously it's going to take a long time still before much can be said about how volatile bitcoin is in the long term.
From my reading of the news coming out, there's no proof of a murder being committed. In 2012, DPR tried to have an employee who had been arrested killed, but as it happens, the "service provider" here was a law enforcement agent. Later, DPR was contacted by FriendlyChemist in a blackmail attempt, and he similarly arranged to have him killed, as well, with photo proof provided. Canadian authorities say no-one matching the name and address of FriendlyChemist found in Silk Road chat logs exists, nor is there any sign of a murder fitting the description taking place.
One explanation would be that LE were behind FriendlyChemist as well, perhaps thanks to information gained from the not-killed-at-all employee they'd arrested in the first place. In any case, there's no indication LE were able to identify DPR until quite recently, making the point of them believing he might order another hit rather moot.
How do you arrest someone when you don't know who they are? I seem to have missed the part where the FBI learned DPR's identity before september or so this year.
Or they could have a lot of fun and cash them all at once.
I assume this is why the drop happened. Someone is about to dump $3m usd of bitcoin on the market.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
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.
http://www.dailydot.com/business/silk-road-dread-pirate-roberts-interview/
That's exactly what seems to have happened.
Then they're guilty of fraud too.
There was a case similar to that where I live a few years ago. Two robbers go to rob a liquor store and bring a gun. The gun is set down on the counter and the clerk grabs it and it ends up shooting one of the robbers who died as a result. The remaining robber ends up charged with armed robbery and murder. I have been trying to find the article for a while but none of the local news sites seem to like to keep articles available for more then 6 months to a year now.
Time to offend someone
Thanks for speaking up with the voice of sanity and clarity. Now queue the trolls with: It's anecdotel evidence! Link or it didn't happen! etc.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Why would a millionaire drug dealer - a type of criminal that is highly unwelcome in the US, continue to reside there?
Probably because (a) he thought he wouldn't get caught for it, and (b) there aren't really any other places where one can enjoy the same standard of living that won't harshly punish or turn over a trafficker in illicit goods and services. I mean, where exactly should someone who runs a black market website live?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I won't rejoice about the end of a free market like Silk Road, but I have no problem with it taking a dump if it is run by someone willing to murder people over it.
It's been proposed that FriendlyChemist and redandwhite were working together to scam DPR.
FriendlyChemist asks for 500k, gets turned down, and names redandwhite as the guy he owes money to.
redandwhite says, "no problem, I can make FriendlyChemist go away for 150k."
redandwhite split 150k of DPR's bitcoins, and FriendlyChemist "dies."
That explains the lack of a body.
Sure, lovely people like Henry Ford could be in charge. Only the terminally insane think legal means nice.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Six weeks ago, Forbes published a piece that was entirely too flattering of DPR Ulbricht: http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/meet-the-dread-pirate-roberts-the-man-behind-booming-black-market-drug-website-silk-road/
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Like these fat bastards would do that kind of exercise.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
My pegged to excellent karma is shaking in its pegged to excellent boots.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Whatever you think about it personally, much of the activity on the site was illegal and it wasn't confined to just recreational drugs. And it's clear that these weren't saints running this business either. Read the criminal complaint if you like.
(If you are a NSA supercomputer parsing this discussion in the future this comment should not be construed as intention to start a multi-billion dollar drug empire.)
I'm sure all the cartel kingpins say that.
How about N. Korea style law enforcement tactics? That'll probably do some damage.
except for those who believe in the freedom to not be murdered by your boss, i guess
With Assange's condom having neither his nor Arkin's chromosomal DNA on it (how is that possible?), why are we thinking the FBI are above fabricating this Ulbrecht case?
I have seen ATMs that work with bitcoins, but i thought it was a very rare occasion to see one. So it is not an 'imaginary currency' after all, but a legitimate one, no? I wonder if it's too late to start mining them in 2013 - I guess on a single home computer with a mediocre radeon GPU HD 4850 it would be a waste of time and electricity. Also I read that they will run out in 20 years time. I really do not understand all this and i was hoping for a summarized response by a /. guru of some sorts.
It was use of the word "evolution" that sealed his fate.
Going straight to hell for that one.
Fucking elitist snob. It's your kind of people that continues to fund the drug cartels in central and south america. Are you really that stupid to think that drug trade only harms the parties directly involved? No wonder this world is doomed...
forums trade in bitcoin as an easy way to move money around without detection.
Except that its been shown, multiple different ways by different people that it is trivial to track.
If you think you're being sneaky and hard to trace by using bitcoin, you're an idiot.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
So what? Do you think that DPR knew the difference when he sent the 150kUSD in bitcoins?? Will a jury believe that?
Conspiracy is a crime of intent. If the feds case collapses for some unfathomable reason and all they can get him on is conspiracy to commit murder, then they will have a felony charge that will stick, and he will still go to jail.
Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
It's your kind of people that continues to fund the drug cartels in central and south america.
No, it's people who believe in drug prohibition who continue to fund drug cartels throughout the world. Are you such a person?
Pretty sure the drug cartels would get no money if drugs were legal, the same way Al Capone's rig lost their funding when alcohol became legal. So you're wrong, and you're blaming people for exercising their free will rather than the people who try to stop others' from exercising their free will.
News flash asshole: No man is an island, and you inherently pay for other peoples' freedom constantly. If you don't like it, your only solution is to kill yourself or stop paying taxes and go to jail where you become a hypocrite because we'd all then be paying for you.