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8 Users of Silk Road Arrested, 'Many More To Come'

Posted by Soulskill on from the many-people-suddenly-nervous dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Last week authorities shut down Silk Road, an online black market that made use of Tor to hide activity. They also arrested the site's primary operator, Ross Ulbricht, and seized his possessions. Now, an AP report indicates at least 8 more arrests have been made on people suspected to have sold drugs through the site. Four of the arrests happened in the U.K., two were in the U.S. and two were in Sweden. It looks like they're gearing up for more arrests, as well. Keith Bristow of Britain's National Crime Agency said, 'These latest arrests are just the start; there are many more to come.' Authorities are reportedly mining the site's customer review system, which contains months worth of transaction data, for further leads."

7 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. I find it more interesting... by crafty.munchkin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... that people used their real names and addresses on Silk Rd as sellers, and expected to never get busted in the process.

    --
    ... wait, what?
    1. Re:I find it more interesting... by jonbryce · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You need to use a real address if you want to buy stuff, and in the UK at least, you don't need to have that much before it is "possession with intent to supply". People could have been buying wholesale on Silk Road and selling it on the street, and even if they weren't, if the quantities were more than about a day's supply they would get charged with that anyway.

  2. So... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Anybody interesting and hilariously anti-drug in public life on the list yet, or do those get filtered out before they send in the jackboots?

  3. Re:Crime by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Speaking of Swedish prison my dad knows a guy who calms it saved his life. How? No alcohol on weekdays. But on the week ends (Swedish prison let most of the prisoners out for weekend) the guy would go drinking with one of the guards. After following this habit for a 2 years. He still no longer drink during week days.

  4. Crime rule #1. by goodmanj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Crime rule #1: If you're going to do crime, don't do crime with anyone you haven't known since high school. Doing crime with random strangers over the Internet is just fcking stupid.

  5. The balance between anonymity and accountability by hessian · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I would like to be able to purchase my drugs anonymously, but since I'm paying Silk Road a percentage, I'd like some kind of guarantee.

    Some kind of accountability, in other words.

    How to balance the two? They don't balance. Even if the only accountability is a seller's good name, there must be some kind of linked identification which, over time, provides enough information to find the individual and arrest them.

    --
    Futurist Traditionalism
  6. Re:Important to note ..... by rmstar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    this isn't a failure of the technology.

    Not directly. Indirectly, it helped create a nice big honeypot where now lots of people got caught. This is not unlike the childporn exchanges on the tor network. Pervs flock to these sites, and create a big juicy target for law enforcement.

    You have to realize that it is far more cost effective for law enforcement to break silk road and get the adresses of lots of dealers than to chase them one by one. It is so cost effective that they can use a well funded crack team (no pun intended) to do it.

    So in a way, this technology is in fact helping law enforcement.