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A MAN WHO went by the alias Dread Pirate Roberts was quickly convicted yesterday on charges he created a multimillion-dollar online marketplace for illegal drugs and other contraband.
Ross William Ulbricht, who promised buyers and sellers anonymity through use of encryption and bitcoins, was convicted of seven drug and conspiracy in a US court.
The Manhattan federal court jury’s verdict came after just over three hours of deliberations and one day after prosecutors urged jurors to follow Ulbricht’s “digital fingerprints” as the mastermind of a website known as the Silk Road.
Ulbricht’s supporters expressed outrage after the guilty verdict was announced. After the jury left the room, one shouted, “Ross is a hero!” Another called out to him: “It’s not over Ross. We love you.”
The boyish-looking Ulbricht, 30, waved toward the spectators as he was led out of court.
His mother, Lyn, exited complaining that the defense had been barred from putting on evidence that would help prove its claims that her son was a harmless, college-educated computer geek who was framed by others in a murky Internet world where nothing is what it seems.
It was not a fair trial. It was not an even playing field, and I think that’s a travesty,” she said.
Ulbricht’s sentencing in New York is scheduled for May 15, and some charges carry a maximum of life in prison.
Over $200 million in drug deals
Prosecutors had alleged that Ulbricht’s website — with thousands of listings under categories like “Cannabis,” ”Psychedelics” and “Stimulants” — brokered more than 1 million drug deals worth $213 million (€186 million) before his arrest in 2013. They also said Ulbricht collected $18 million (€15.7 million) worth of bitcoins in commissions.
At a three-week trial, Homeland Security Agent Jared Der-Yeghiayan testified that the website’s shipments came to his attention in June 2011 when X-rays and canine detection dogs at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport turned up envelopes from the Netherlands containing Ecstasy pills wrapped in vacuum seal and foil.
By late September, he said, he learned about Silk Road and began infiltrating it, taking over staff member accounts each time someone was arrested or agreed to cooperate.
The agent testified that the website’s online boss went by the alias Dread Pirate Roberts — a reference to the swashbuckling character in “The Princess Bride” — and prosecutors presented numerous instant message conversations involving a person using that persona.
Der-Yeghiayan further countered defense attempts to cast doubt on whether Ulbricht was Dread Pirate Roberts by describing communicating online with Ulbricht when he was arrested while sitting at his computer at San Francisco’s Glen Park Library.
Agents, he said, were instructed to snatch the laptop before arresting Ulbricht.
On it, he said, they discovered that Ulbricht was signed in as Dread Pirate Roberts and was immersed in a chat with Der-Yeghiayan, he said.
Defence claims
During closing arguments Tuesday, defense attorney Joshua Dratel said his client quit Silk Road soon after creating it to sell anything on the Internet and before the website was overrun by drug dealers.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Serrin Turner said Ulbricht operated the site from beginning to end and was willing to do anything to protect it.
He cited emails that he said showed Ulbricht was willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to kill as many as five people he thought were threats to his operation.
Ulbricht faced no murder charges in New York, but still awaits trial in Baltimore in a murder-to-hire plot.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the conviction “should send a clear message to anyone else attempting to operate an online criminal enterprise. The supposed anonymity of the dark web is not a protective shield from arrest and prosecution.”
Dratel called the verdict “very disappointing” and said it would be appealed. He also warned that the outcome could set a dangerous precedent for future prosecutions.
One of the problems is the possibility that any one of us will be judged by things for which there is no attribution in real life,” he said.
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And since his arrest Silk Road 2.0 has been released and closed, and now Silk Road 3.0 is up and running, with legions willing to step up and be the new DPR. It’s almost as if arresting individuals doesn’t alter demand for illicit drugs.
They’re sending one of the rice crispie kids to jail judging by that picture
You’re smoking to much of the stuff from his website
The chap was just a web developer, that’s very harsh!
he was linkedin alright :-)
More people like him needed in the free
World
it’s going to make a great movie.
To be fair, the silk road is probably the closest thing to being a legitimate enterprise on the whole tor network.. it will sprout two heads for each one you cut off.
Hope they lock him away for a long time to come.
Jake is a paid shill for harsh custodial sentences.
Shut up Glen…
What’s with all the sympathy. How many lives were destroyed and lost with the help of this individual. What’s up with this total freedom to do what you want on the internet. We need laws here too. Now where is my violin
Can I suggest all the red thumbers maybe get involved with the drug trade.
Your lack of moral compass is certainly pointing in the right direction. Hypocrites the lot of you
Question: have international efforts to restrict the supply of illicit narcotics via the legal censure of both suppliers & users over the past ~50 years been successful in reducing or eradicating the gross global supply of narcotics, or have these policies run alongside an exponential growth in demand for, and supply of, these illicit drugs?
Silk Road was only down for a month after the FBI seized it. DPR isn’t a person, it’s a title, and a title that is already back in use by the latest DPR. If he gets caught, someone else will step in. So what’s the point exactly?
And how many adults exercising what they believe is a personal freedom did this man help have a great weekend every now and then? Plenty, I assure you.
I can also assure you that many people that you know very well are recreational drug users. Possibly people in your immediate family.
My final assurance is that anyone who was able to access this site had at least some technical chops. It’s not easy to find or access, let alone set up the encryption to send your address. So those who could access the site were, in general, relatively smart. Smart enough to know exactly what they were doing and taking. This wasn’t a site your mother could access and certainly not a site the average child could ever come across. Stumbling across it is impossible.
If people are smart enough to complete a transaction on the silk road, they’re smart enough to have some personal responsibility. Believing that YOUR opinion and restriction of personal liberties, and your opinion that your way of life is better, makes you the hypocrite.
The war on drugs has failed. At least with the silk road the drug dealing and taking was not on Abbey Street or the Quays. While I don’t do drugs, I believe that I should have the right to do what I want with my body. I don’t tell you what to do with yours.
Finally, you should know about red thumbs. People who care about them get them. If you’re so desperate for approval of your opinion, give yourself a thumbs up in the mirror.
Oops….do people think that drugs ruin lives or something?
Hate that.
have your say