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Silk Road Case: Prosecution Reads Alleged Transcript of DPR Arranging 5 Murders

Posted by Soulskill on from the you-come-at-the-king-you-best-not-miss dept.

New submitter BenBoy points out an article at Wired about the most recent developments in the trial of Ross Ulbricht, alleged to be the man behind the Silk Road digital black market, going by the alias Dread Pirate Roberts. The prosecution has now rested its case, but one of their last presentations was a series of communications between DPR and a supposed member of the Hell's Angels motorcycle club in which he arranged for hitmen to kill five different people. Wired notes, Ulbricht, who the prosecutors have sought to prove is that Dread Pirate Roberts, hasn't been charged with murder-for-hire in his Southern District of New York case, though he faces charges that include conspiracies to sell narcotics, launder money and more. (He does, however, face murder-for-hire charges in a separate case in Baltimore.) In fact, the prosecution admitted in court that the purported victims of the Silk Road killings were never found, and that Canadian police couldn't even locate records for anyone with their names. ... Even so, the prosecution took pains to read the entire conversation to the jury because it’s intended to show them the darkest side of the Silk Road’s short history. If genuine, the transcript shows that members of the Hell's Angels organization are familiar with using encryption to shield their communications from law enforcement. Forbes has a detailed update on how the rest of the case has progressed, and Ars has a brief article on today's closing arguments.

4 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. Not really news by DerekLyons · · Score: 3, Interesting

    From TFS: If genuine, the transcript shows that members of the Hell's Angels organization are familiar with using encryption to shield their communications from law enforcement.

    Not really news, I seem to recall coming across mention of this (with regards to the Angels) back in the late 90's/early 00's. Not that criminals using codes or ciphers or various other means of obscuring or obfuscating their communications is exactly new in any form.

    1. Re:Not really news by fafalone · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Of course Hells Angels and every other large organization is using encryption tech to communicate. But that has nothing to do with anything mentioned in this article or post or even trial.

      It should be obvious to anyone who's even the slightest bit acquainted with scammers. The first thing I did when reading the transcript? Laughed and laughed and laughed since it was so blindingly obvious that lucydrops, FriendlyChemist, and redandwhite were all the same person working a scam. Blackmail (ludicrous to begin with, my ass you have tons of vendors details) not working? "Hi, I'm authorized to contract hits for a major gang! Need some help with your blackmail problem? And of course I don't mind killing the roommates too! It will get you a bulk rate on your hits! Then we'll sell dirt cheap Hells Angel brand drugs and let everyone else benefit from my lack of concern about who I am with!"
      Computer geek without the slightest clue how junkie hustlers work. Would bet anything asking DPR to front that alleged new vendor operation would have been the next step if not for the arrest. Funny stuff. Dudes own personal cash pinata, just keep whacking(!) for shiny bitcoin candy!

  2. Existence of hitman? by CODiNE · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm curious, has anyone ran the conversations from FriendlyChemist and Redandwhite through one of those grammar analyzing programs to see the likelihood that they're the same person? It looks fairly likely that DPR may have been scammed by someone wholly unconnected to the trial. $650k is quite a lot to make just sending a few emails around.

    Also it should be possible to trace both bitcoin wallets and see if there's any overlap between them.

    --
    Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
  3. Re:Sheesh! I thought Reiser had a bad defense... by Macman408 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They might not have offered him a deal, or he might've been too stupid to take it. The prosecution apparently accused him of thinking he's too smart to be convicted (speaking of Hans Reiser...), and Ars Technica had an Op-Ed speculating that he might not be taking the advice of his lawyer as much as he should be - or his lawyer isn't doing a good job.

    Reading Ars Technica's great day-by-day coverage of the trial, I think the prosecution has probably done a great job of tying up all the evidence in a beautiful package for the jury, while the defense laid out a haphazard tale meant to distract and confuse the jury. This is exactly what happened when I served on a jury a couple years ago - maybe 3 of the people on the jury were somewhat swayed by the defense's arguments, but after a little deliberation, the rest of us convinced those 3 that he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

    I think the defense attorney probably did his job here in trying to confuse things - but seeing how the evidence was presented in Ars's articles, I think that he'd have to get really lucky with the jury to get an acquittal at this point.