The Dread Pirate Roberts’ desperate attempts to escape (Part 2/3) | Forensic Files

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when Ross Ulbricht aka Dread Pirate Roberts got the offer from a new user named not to start a new site called
masters of the Silk Road for major dealers he was already having his own discussions with variety Jones about
different ways they could expand some ideas they had were silk digital which would sell downloadable products like
stolen software and hacking software silk farmer was another idea which would focus on prescription medication and
last but not least the armory guns had created problems on Silk Road ever since they first appeared a large part of the
community weren't happy that guns were for sale as detailed in the book Silk Road by Alain Ormsby one user stated
while I support the right of someone being able to have a single shotgun for self-defense
I'm not comfortable with the idea of automatic and semi-automatic weapons being made available to anyone with the
money to buy them just because we support the rights of people to put what they like in their own bodies doesn't
mean that we are evil people in spite of what the government would often have the
general public believe Nepal was created titled would you like to see the sale of
guns removed from the Silk Road the vote was split at around fifty-fifty many used the started adopting a signature
under their posts that read no guns on Silk Road even Tony 76 the former respected seller who had played the
great 420 sale scam stated that guns would be the downfall of Silk Road he said it would bring unwanted attention
from law enforcement author Nick Bilton outlines in the book American kingpin that variety Jones had
tried to warn Ross that guns were not a good idea for business at first as was his nature variety Jones said it in a
sarcastic and almost joking way the way he put it was that it was better to remove the guns so grandma can come here
for her trip Canadian farmer meds and to not trip over a Glock nine millimeter then variety Jones became more direct
with Ross and told him guns would scare off a lot of clients that's why they started discussing the possibility of
opening up a separate site for guns so the complaints from Silk Road users would stop the first option they had in
mind was to name the site Silk armory to continue on with the silk brand a variety Jones said it didn't sound right
so they settled for the armory Ross used code and programming from Silk Road to make the new website he made a new logo
which was the letter A with wings once they launched the armory they realized that the implications of having a
website for weapons were a lot more complicated than having a website for drugs with Silk Road drugs could easily
be shipped through the mail and sellers constantly thought of new ways to stay ahead so the drugs wouldn't be detected
the shipping guns was a different matter altogether it wasn't that easy two hot guns in the mail Ross considered this
and posted it on his Facebook wall asking if anyone knew someone who worked in the shipping sector one of his
friends on Facebook asked why and Ross answered that he had a new startup idea Ross and variety Jones knew they were a
target for law enforcement but the reality was they had no idea if they were on anyone's radar or not at that
point just to be safe variety Jones decided he would had the Toyland where he said he had hidden before and where
he had dirty cops working for him Ross decided to lay Austin too he moved to San Francisco he had been contemplating
a move for a while and coincidentally a friend of his Renee asked him to move to
San Francisco with him Renee said they could work on building a startup business together
and Ross could stay in the apartment with he and his girlfriend Ross accepted but before leaving he had
to have another discussion with his ex-girlfriend Julia Ross had told his old programming friend Richard that he
sold Silk Road and no longer had anything to do with it but he hadn't had that discussion with Julia yet so Ross
message Julia through Facebook and arranged a meeting Ross asked her if she'd told anyone else about this I and
apart from Erica Julia apologized again forever telling Erica to begin with and assured him that she hadn't told anyone
else then Ross told her that he'd given Silk Road away that had caused him too much stress and the only reason he kept
it for so long was because he liked the power that came with it but now he was finished someone else was running it
Julia believed his law and to thank him for giving it up Ross said they probably
wouldn't be seeing each other again for a long time because he was leaving town and that was that in the summer of 2012
Ross left for San Francisco almost as soon as Ross arrived in San Francisco he had an altercation with Variety Jones it
wasn't their first altercation either they previously had a disagreement over the great 4/20 sale and giveaway the
person who won the prize had bought a lot of heroin and practically overdosed on it variety Jones didn't think it was
a good idea giving him the money for the prize as he was trying to get clean but
Ross laughed it off and said they should give away a price to rehab for the next
contest they also had a disagreement over the selling of heroin itself variety James hated heroin and he didn't
want to profit off of it but Ross saw things differently believing it wasn't up to him to stop someone from doing
what they wanted to do but their latest argument was a more significant one variety Jones wanted co-ownership of
Silk Road he said they could do things one of two ways they said they went 5050 or variety Jones would take Silk Road
for himself Ross couldn't believe what he was hearing he told variety Jones to bring it on if
he wanted because he wasn't going to give in to his demands variety Jones was already making $60,000 a month free
services and that's where Ross was leaving it he wasn't giving away equity after some heated discussion variety
Jones accepted Ross's decision and didn't try and make a play to take over Silk Road
their discussions then moved on to another topic security they were both well aware the
authorities might be watching their every move at that point in time they hadn't come face to face with anyone
suspicious but they wanted to be ready in case they ever did already some months prior ross implemented secret
questions with each of his employees Ross gave each employee a question and a specific answer to that question the
only people who knew the question and the answer were Ross and his employee if Ross got the wrong answer to his
question he would immediately shut down the account of the employee Ross then adopted another condition for his
employees if someone wanted to work for him he or she would have to provide some
sort of ID this could be a driver's license or a passport there wasn't just about wanting to know who worked for him
it was also a guarantee for himself his employees were starting to handle more and more responsibilities and some even
had access to Bitcoin accounts so now if someone decided to steal from him he would have their name and address he
made it clear to his employees that was the purpose of providing the ID and that
he wasn't someone to mess with along with these new employment conditions Ross took care of security on his laptop
earlier that year he bought a samsung laptop the problem was he hadn't encrypted it at all variety Jones had
recently discussed a case on the news a man who was leaking information to WikiLeaks had been arrested and his
computer was very easily accessed by the FBI because he used the same password to
log into his computer and for the encryption Ross and variety Jones both agreed this was very stupid if he had
used different passwords that were both strong the FBI might not have been able to get into his computer so easily if at
all Ross was adamant that he wouldn't make the same mistake variety Jones told him
to set his laptop to do two things one was to shut down automatically if it hadn't been used for a certain amount of
time and second was to install a kill switch a kill switch automatically shuts down the computer with the press of a
predetermined key on the keyboard variety Jones explained that this was essential because if the FBI came after
him and approached him in public catching him off guard he would just need to press one key on his laptop and
it would shut down and if he did his encryption right the FBI would never be able to access his computer because they
wouldn't have his passwords therefore they would have no proof against Ross Ross tearless variety Jones told him and
made those two changes on his laptop precise if he should store all of the Silk Road files on the cloud that way
they wouldn't be on his computer at all but that would make working on the site a lot slower so variety Jones instructed
Ross to keep the files on his computer but to make sure he encrypted every single one of them after this encryption
process Ross made another change to his computer he partitioned the hard drive this meant that his computer was
separated into two parts one part would be for Ross and his personal life and the other part would be for the Dread
Pirate Roberts and Silk Road from that moment on Ross completely respected the different sides he never did anything
related to his personal life on the Dread Pirate Roberts side and he never did anything related to Dread Pirate
Roberts or Silk Road on his personal side lastly Ross wrote down a list on his computer called emergency it was a to-do
list in case he ever felt he was in real danger of being caught the items he wrote on the list were encrypt and
backup important files on laptop to memory stick destroy laptops hard drive and hired dispose destroy phone and
hired dispose fine place to live on Craigslist for cash and create new identity name in the backstory all of
these steps were taken while variety Jones went to mingle once again with the dealers and buyers on Silk Road but this
time he wasn't getting a gauge for descent and mutiny he was mingling to see if any law
enforcement representatives were lurking on the soil [Music] in the meantime by October 2012 one year
after he'd started his investigation Jarod der-yeghiayan land security investigations team had gotten quite far
he was working in what was essentially a team of one the few others knew what he
was doing and helped him here and there but mostly Jared did it all by himself he had now ceased over 2000 on furlough
containing drugs that were neatly classified in his office and with his profiling system he managed to identify
and link certain drugs to sellers on Silk Road he was able to make several arrests by doing this once he had the
sellers in custody he made them hand in their Silk Road accounts and Jared took them over he then entered the site and
pretended to be then Jared never planned on making sales of his own and unlike Carl force from the Baltimore DEA office
he never tried to contact the Dread Pirate Roberts he didn't believe that would work what he was interested in was
building his Silk Road profile further and understanding more about the site what Jared believed would work and what
he had been trying to do from the beginning was to try and get in the shoes of the people who were using Silk
Road to try and think like they did and this is exactly what he did when trying to figure out who the Dread
Pirate Roberts was since the seller accounts had shown him more about the community but not much more about the
Dread Pirate Roberts Jarrod went to the best source available the Dread Pirate Roberts forum posts the Dread Pirate
Roberts had posted many messages and those messages had evolved over time at the beginning when he was the Silk Road
administrator the messages were simpler or stuck mostly to whatever announcement
he had to make about the soil but as time passed and when he changed his name from admin to the Dread Pirate Roberts
the messages got longer and had more of a revolutionary idea behind them the Dread Pirate Roberts spoke more and more
about the poor role of the government and how Silk Road would never fall into the hands of it
Jarrod knew the Dread Pirate Roberts was a well-read individual he even managed a
book club in the Silk Road forums he selected a book each way that the Silk Road community could then discuss
knowledge was power and reading was one of the best ways to increase your knowledge the Dread Pirate Roberts said
the books focused on algorism counter economics anarcho-capitalism austrian economics political philosophy freedom
issues and related topics as a way to try and understand how the Dread Pirate Roberts thought Jarrod read the books
however he found them very dense and he didn't agree with libertarianism to him it felt like a set of beliefs put
together designed for the sole purpose of not having to take responsibility for your actions but the books did help him
to continue building a profile on who the Dread Pirate Roberts could be so far Jared's theory was that the Dread
Pirate Roberts was very educated he didn't seem rich but he didn't seem poor either so most likely he belonged to the
middle class and although he was completely against the government and spoke about a revolution money and
profit was definitely a motivation one more important conclusion Jared had was that the Dread Pirate Roberts was young
Jared concluded this based on the wording in his forum posts the words he used in the way he spelled them and
looked to Jared like someone young was behind them while Jared was analyzing the Dread Pirate Roberts forum posts he
was informed that an agent from the DEA who was working with a homeland security
team in Baltimore was chatting with the Dread Pirate Roberts regularly this was of course agent Karl force who was
posing as nob on Silk Road Jared was initially frustrated about this fact but then he saw the positive side of it that
would give him further conversations to analyze Jared asked for the chat logs between knob and the Dread Pirate
Roberts but when he got the logs he felt alarmed by what he was reading he noticed immediately that agent cart
force in his nob persona was trying to play friends with the Dread Pirate Roberts he was trying to gain his trust
but by doing so he was giving away too much information Carl had gone as far as telling the
Dread Pirate Roberts that he should have alternate passports made with a new identity and he should look for a new
place to live that was far from us laws and regulations Jared was right to be alarmed
because Ross was taking nobs advice and doing exactly that in November 2012 Ross flew to Dominica an island in the
Caribbean grass at Danny's research and found that it was one of the best places
he could escape to there were two main reasons the first was that in Dominica you could buy a citizenship with an
investment of $75,000 and the second was that it was a tax-free country one of the main worries Ross had was
that by exchanging his big coins for cash he would draw suspicion his account was getting larger and larger and the
value of Bitcoin itself was growing as well as good as that was from a financial perspective it also posed the
problem Ross had no idea how to remove money from his Bitcoin account without getting asked the question where did all
that money come from but in Dominica he didn't need to justify his income to the government so
Ross traveled there to have his citizenship expedited while he was travelling Silk Road suffered from
another hacking attack when Ross got to Dominica he had no option but to do what
the hack is asked to hand over ten thousand dollars worth of Bitcoin after Ross gave them the ten grand
the hackers realized they could ask for more so before stopping the attacks they
demanded a further fifteen thousand dollars again Ross found himself with no other
option he had to pay up once the hacking attacks were over he continued with his plans in Dominica one
of the conditions in order to get citizenship was presenting recommendation letters from people who
had known him for a long time so Ross asked some of his friends they knew he was constantly searching for startup
opportunities and when he explained the tax-free opportunities in Dominica that made sense to them they weren't
suspicious at all while Ross still care if the paperwork he also search for other alternative
places to escape just in case variety Jones had told him not to settle for one but to search for two or more places to
escape to Ross was interested in Costa Rica Thailand where variety Jones was in a few places in Europe but he didn't
like the idea of having to hide possibly for years and he also didn't like not being able to talk about Silk Road or if
the problems to anyone in real life from the book American kingpin Ross told variety Jones the worst part is that I
have no one to talk to about this stuff with it just bounces around in my head variety Jones answered best advice I can
give right now his plan on a few years without emotional attachments X's can put you in jail for life the one thing
Ross took solace in was a new feature he introduced the Silk Road Silk Roads movie night he set a date for everyone
in the community who wanted to take part they all downloaded the same movie and watched it at the same time the movie he
chose was a V for Vendetta one of his favorites he saw a lot of similarities between the movie and Silk
Road and he posted the following quote from it people should not be afraid of their governments governments should be
afraid of their people when Ross finished completing the paperwork in Dominica and he was sure
that his citizenship application was in process he returned to San Francisco upon his
return he found himself with many more problems the hacking attack that occurred when he was flying to Dominica
had forced his program at a shut silkroad down for two days during those two days buyers and sellers became
increasingly worried that Silk Road wouldn't return at all many wondered if the Dread Pirate Roberts had left with
all of their money their fears were alleviated once Silk Road went back online but that wasn't the end of it
many theorized that the Dread Pirate Roberts wasn't the same Dread Pirate Roberts anymore sometime prior as part
of local security measures and contingencies the Dread Pirate Roberts announced that he would try and change
his riding style in his posts so that it would become more undetectable but this
backfired as many suspected it wasn't the same Dread Pirate Roberts anymore they thought it was someone else
completely Silk Roads movie night became criticized too many believed that the true Dread Pirate Roberts would never
post a link to a torrent site to download a movie because it would go against the very strict security
measures he was claiming to keep other scams continued to take place as well one which many uses fell for was the
hidden Wikipedia scam someone had changed the link to Silk Road on the hidden Wikipedia page and replaced it
for a link to a clone of the Silk Road page the clone site looked exactly like the real thing
[Music] the difference was that the client site asked you to enter your pin code for
your Bitcoin wallet to login so when a person entered their pin code on the clone site they soon had their bitcoins
stolen another scam came in December 2012 someone changed some of the images on the sellers accounts and added a
quick Buy button the quick buy button redirected the person to a Bitcoin address where they had to send their
money to make the quick buyer but it was a complete scam these scams brought endless complaints but by the end of
December 2012 Ross was able to get things back to normal and focus on what was important expanding the armory
proved to be a bad decision there wasn't a single sale of a gun so he closed it down he temporarily allowed for guns to
be sold on Silk Road again but due to backlash he removed them and said they wouldn't
be returning to Silk Road around this time other new listings started to appear as detailed in the book American
kingpin one of Ross's employee sent him the following message so we have a vendor selling cyanide not sure where we
stand on this he's not listing it as a poison but it's only the most well known assassination and suicide poison out
there lol Ross requested a link to the listing the seller had written that cyanide was
perfect for cleaning gold and silver and could even be used to treat leprosy and
with every sale of cyanide he would throw in a free copy of an e-book called the final exit a guide to source of it
Ross decided to allow this listing soon after one of his employees sent him this message question foyer do we allow
our selling kidneys and livers the seller said in the listing that the entire operation would be consensual
Ross replied yes if the source consents than it's okay morals are easy when you understand the
non-aggression principle one of the first things a person read when they entered Silk Road was the following
message you may be shocked to find the listings here that are outlawed in your jurisdiction that doesn't mean Silk Road
is lawless in fact we have a very strict code of conduct that if given a chance most people I think would agree with our
basic rules that are treat others as you would wish to be treated mind your own business and don't do anything to hurt
or scam someone else in the spirit of those rules there are some things you will never say here and if you do please
report them they include a child pornography stolen goods assassinations and stolen personal information just the
name of you so Ross wasn't against the selling of organs or body parts in fact he thought
if other sellers follow through there might be a good way of expanding the business body parts and organs went for
a much higher price than drugs a kidney alone could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars but Ross's main
goal for expansion was implementing the Masters of the Silk Road idea that had been proposed by nob the offshoot site
from Silk Road that would focus on bulk drug sales he had been going back and forth discussing the idea with nob over
the last few months and it was finally about to happen nob wanted to do a test buyer and Ross
found a buyer for a kilo of cocaine the delivery of coke was arranged for January 2013
Ross waited anxiously to see if the delivery was a success but nob had other plans
the Baltimore Homeland Security Investigations team had formed the task force called the Marcopolo task force
and did their biggest asset was DEA agent Karl Force who was posing as nob on Silk Road karl was once again acting
without authorization in relation to his master's at the Silk Road idea he was continuing to play by his own rules his
conversations with the Dread Pirate Roberts took place on tour chat and they were recorded and monitored by the Marco
Polo task force although they didn't approve of his idea to set up the Masters of the Silk Road site there
wasn't much they could do about it the plan was already in action Carl said he was just playing the friend
card with the Dread Pirate Roberts but Jarrett from the homeland security office in Chicago wasn't the only one
who was questioning what information Carl was giving away they talked about nearly everything including sometimes
personal experiences but it was the information about drug smuggling that Carl was giving to the Dread Pirate
Roberts that most concerned the Baltimore task force for example Carl explained how to avoid the mail system
completely with large quantities of drugs by doing dead drops dead drops involve a deal or leaving drugs at a
location like a Hyatt locker then the dealer would provide the combination code to the boil the Boyer would take
the drugs and leave the money inside the locker that way both dealer and buyer could make the transaction without ever
needing to meet face to face Carl was also toeing the Dread Pirate Roberts that he loved him to stay safe and he
even wished him good night when Carl supervised a question to these conversations Carl simply answered that
he needed to gain the Dread Pirate Roberts trust and he was saying whatever it took to do that Homeland Security in
the DEA weren't the only agencies involved in the Marco Polo task force in Baltimore it also included people from
the Postal Service who helped track the drugs in the mail and agents from the Secret Service to try and follow the
money on Silk Road Shawn bridges was a Secret Service agent working on the task force and he desperately wanted to be
the one to bring down the Dread Pirate Roberts as it can't force there was a lot of competition between the competing
agencies there was even competition between agents within the same agency everyone wanted to be the one to crack
the case it would be a career-maker this resulted in poor communication and exchange of information but Shawn
bridges and cart Force decided to team up they came up with a plan to involve the NSA in the Silk Road case they had
heard that the NSA could get into any computer in the world so they wanted their help
Shawn bridges had a contact in the NSA and he managed to arrange a meeting with an analyst from the agency Shawn and
Carl met up with the analyst but didn't tell anyone else in the Marco Polo task force the analyst explained to them that
the NSA couldn't touch a case unless there was a threat to national security so Carl and Shawn came up with a new
plan they would buy explosives from Silk Road which were for sale at the time and
it that way that could prove that Silk Road was a threat to national security their idea
was to buy pipe bombs and have them delivered to a secret government post office box but they aborted their plan
when they realized that having bombs delivered in the mail could be dangerous and problematic for them so that's when
Carl force decided to move forward with his master's of the Silk Road idea and he asked the Dread Pirate Roberts to
find a buyer for a kilo of cocaine the price was $27,000 Ross asked one of his employees who went by the username
chronic-pain to find a buyer chronic pains real name was Curtis Greene Curtis found a buyer and the plan was for the
kilo of coke to be delivered to Curtis his house first the Dread Pirate Roberts sent nob at the address as soon as Carla
got the address the entire Marco Polo task force started moving the delivery was set to take place on a
Wednesday in January 2013 the entire Baltimore task force traveled 2,000 miles to curtis's address in Spanish
Fork Utah Carl had a contact in law enforcement there and he asked to borrow a kilo of cocaine from their evidence
room Carl got the kilo then arranged a priority mail package at the local post office the plan was to do a controlled
delivery an officer would pose as a mailman they parked the van outside curtis's house the rest of the task
force including a SWAT team were parked around the block the delivery was made at 11 a.m.
Carl said in a car across the street watching the entire operation unfold the officer posing is the mailman grabbed
the package from the back of the pen and - left it at Curtis greens front door he
then returned to the van and waited a few minutes passed before the door of the house opened and Curtis green looked
out from the doorway he was in his 40s and used a crane to get around he stared at his surroundings and saw the white
male van still parked at the front then he stared at the package waiting for him
on the porch he slowly walked towards the package picked it up walk towards the garbage can next to his house and
throw it out then he returned inside and closed the door Carl watched the curtis's every move and
he didn't understand what was happening he started communicating with the rest of the task force and they tried to work
out their next move if Curtis didn't take the package there wasn't much they could do but before they could make a
decision Curtis green opened the front door again he walked back to the trashcan grabbed
at the package indented his house with it closing the door behind him as soon as he closed the door the task
force made their move the SWAT team went in first they broke in the front door and Yoda Curtis green to get on the
ground Curtis was taken by surprise he had a pair of scissors in one hand the package
was open on the table and part of his face was covered in cocaine he immediately did as he was told
and dropped to the floor the officers then started searching curtis's house Curtis was wearing a money belt attached
to his hip and it had $23,000 cash inside in curtis's basement they found several computers that were all linked
together the new Curtis worked as a moderator for the Dread Pirate Roberts but they soon discovered he had other
responsibilities as well firstly his computers worked at the mine Bitcoin the process is complex but in simple terms
all of the transactions made with Bitcoin need to be verified by multiple sources this verification process is
called morning and is performed by a distributed network of computers anyone can run mining software and as a reward
for doing so they received small amounts of Bitcoin when Curtis was caught mining
could still be done on computers at home or with several computers but today mining bitcoins is a very expensive
investment because the algorithms become more and more complex and it takes expensive computer equipment to solve
them apart from the mining of bitcoins the agents found out something else Curtis green handled logins and
passwords of Silk Road users and he also handled the bitcoins that were in Silk Roads escrow account
Secret Service agent Shawn bridges was especially interested in this as his role was to follow the money
while he got what evidence he could from the computers down in the basement Carl
for started talking to Curtis Curtis explained that the Dread Pirate Roberts had authorized him to control the
bitcoins when a user paid for a product the site guarded the money until the buyer was satisfied and Curtis had
access to all of that money Curtis was arrested taken to the local police station booked processed and then
released he stayed hidden in his house in fear certain that the Dread Pirate Roberts would realize that he wasn't on
the site working like he ought to be and soon enough the Dread Pirate Roberts did
realize when Kurtis green Hawk chronic pain as he was known on Silk Road didn't log in
the following day Ross grew suspicious that something might have happened since Kurtis was the
one receiving the kilo of cocaine with Ross's new safety measures he had put in place for his employees he had curtis's
identification so he did a Google search of his name that led him to a website that showed recent arrests and there he
saw Kurtis Greene's mug shot but that wasn't the only thing that Ross found out a few days later he discovered that
there was three hundred and fifty thousand dollars missing from user accounts and there wasn't much doubt as
to who was responsible Kurtis Green was the only person who had access to that money initially Ross didn't know what to
do but the more he thought about it the more he felt that Kurtis Green had the pay Ross wanted the money back and
Kurtis had to learn a lesson cross consulted variety Jones and variety Jones not only believed that
Kurtis deserved to get roughed up but he gave the Dread Pirate Roberts our contact he heard there was a man from
Ireland that went by the name Irish he would travel to wherever he had to and make someone disappear if needed the
problem was that Irish didn't know anything about technology or computers so he wouldn't be able to use curtis's
computers to return the stolen bitcoins Ross consulted another of his most trusted employees and neo an ego offered
to go to Utah himself and pay Curtis Greene a visit but Inigo was the employee with most responsibilities on
Silk Road so Ross didn't want to risk having him away from the computer Ross came up with another idea
a week after curtis's arrest DEA agent Carl Force arranged a meeting with him in a hotel room in Salt Lake City Utah
while posing as not on Silk Road Carl had found out that the Dread Pirate Roberts knew of curtis's arrest so Carl
arranged a meeting with Curtis he took Secret Service agent Shawn bridges and a postal worker with him
Curtis showed up with his lawyer [Music] they all sat down and Kurtis immediately
began rambling telling the agents that it was a good Mormon boy who hadn't committed any crimes before and had just
made a mistake at one point in the conversation his lawyer interrupted him and recommended that he confess everything
he knew to the agents the lawyer then left the meeting leaving curtis alone curtis continued rambling but he didn't
share any information that the agents weren't already aware of at lunch time they took a break hoping the curtis
would provide something useful after they ate during the lunch break carl took out his laptop and logged in to
Silk Road he wanted to speak to the Dread Pirate Roberts and see if he could find anything out about Curtis that he
could use against him during the question Carl was successful in chatting to the Dread Pirate Roberts during the
lunch break and so they did speak about Curtis but the conversation was nothing like Carl had expected
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[Music] the Dread Pirate Roberts shared with not that it was pissed off to no end because
one of his employees had stolen bitcoins from him not replied who is it and where is he karl was shocked when
the Dread Pirate Roberts sent him Curtis greens or a photo in fact Karl looked straight at Curtis and said you stole
money from the Dread Pirate Roberts Curtis didn't seem to understand what was happening in the answered know
you've got to be kidding me I wouldn't even know how to steal a penny from him the Dread Pirate Roberts continued
talking to naught and asked him if he knew anyone who could beat Curtis green up and force him to return the money nob
told him he definitely knew people who could do that the Dread Pirate Roberts asked how quickly naught could take care
of getting someone to Curtis his house not replied that it shouldn't take too long at all Karl closed his laptop and
ordered the postal worker that was with him to fill the bathtub he then explained to Curtis what was going to
happen that would pretend to torture him but it would have to look real that would drown him in the bathtub and Karl
would videotape it to have proof for the Dread Pirate Roberts Karl knew it wasn't
an attractive option for Curtis but as he explained it was either fake his torture or risk the Dread Pirate Roberts
sending someone else to do it for real Curtis was terrified of the Dread Pirate Roberts and he agreed to the fake
torture the postal worker pretended to be the torturer and Karl filmed it the postal worker sunk Kurtis is heading to
the bath tub over and over again Carr was encouraging the torture in the background
but the Dread Pirate Roberts was having a change of heart he had been conflicted
on the best course of action to take ever since the big coins were stolen and now the torture of Curtis was actually
taking place he was questioning himself if it was the right thing to do he raised his concerns with the variety
Jones who told him at what point in time do we decide we've had enough of someone's [ __ ] and to terminate them
that was the very option the Dread Pirate Roberts had been considering and it was good to hear that variety Jones
was thinking the same way Dread Pirate Roberts passed the message on to Nova and not the great to kill Curtis green
the price they agreed on was $80,000 40,000 upfront and 40,000 after the job was completed a week later nob sent the
Dread Pirate Roberts a message their conversation is outlined in the book American kingpin knob said Green is dead
and disposed of I'll get your picture for proof of death the Dread Pirate Roberts answered okay thank you I guess
they were unable to get him descended the coins he stole nope they had to do CPR on him one time
actually the trick to torturing someone is keeping the guy alive died of asphyxiation slash heart rupture
after that message knob didn't get a reply back from the Dread Pirate Roberts so we sent him another message you okay
Dread Pirate Roberts responded a little disturbed but I'm okay on new to this kind of thing is all that same day
variety Jones tried to come Dread Pirate Roberts by telling him we're playing for
keeps I'm perfectly comfortable with the decision and I'll sleep like a lamb tonight and every other night hereafter
Dread Pirate Roberts soon received an email from not with the picture that showed Curtis greens body
Ross looked at it for a few moments save the picture to an encrypted folder on his computer and paid not the final
forty thousand dollars Ross believed that was the end of it Curtis Greene was dead except he wasn't
[Music] just like the torturing been faked the murder had been faked as well when Karl
found out that the Dread Pirate Roberts had escalated to murder he was already back in Baltimore so he gave Curtis
Greene a call and told him how to fake his own death he wouldn't need much Karl explained
just the Campbell Soup can he told Curtis to go to the bathroom fill the bathtub with water in sink his head in
then drink the Campbell's soup and throw it up so it looked like blood had come out of his mouth finally he would have
to lie on the floor looked dead and asked his wife to take a close-up picture of him with a cell phone so the
quality of the picture wouldn't be very good and that was the picture that Ross received from nob one week later after
the ordered hit things didn't get any easier on Silk Road it seemed like every other day there was
some new problem the security breach a scam a hacking attack or an extortion attempt like when the Dread Pirate
Roberts received a message from a Silk Road user going by the nickname friendly chemist friendly chemist told the Dread
Pirate Roberts that he had hacked a known seller's account and he had a long list of real names and real addresses
all belonging to members of Silk Road and he was threatening to make the list public friendly chemists sent a few of
their names and addresses to the Dread Pirate Roberts so he knew the threat was real and he also told him that the
sellers account he hacked was real Lucy drops he even gave the password for that
account the entire story involving real Lucy drop started with another user going by the name Lucy drop lucy drop
was a seller with an excellent reputation with a lot of sales and a lot of loyal customers but just like Tony 76
had done in the great 420 sale and giveaway Lucy drop asked all buyers to finalise
early the outside of Silk Roads escrow account a lot of buyers agreed they never got their drugs and a Lucy drop
walked away with about a hundred thousand dollars sometime later a new user appeared on Silk Road with the name
real Lucy drop real Lucy drop claimed to be one of the people involved with the original Lucy drop account but he
explained that his partner had [ __ ] him over stolen their computer along with the names and addresses of the
buyers and then walked away with $100,000 now the person behind this new account named friendly chemists who was
extorting the Dread Pirate Roberts apparently was the same person involved with the original Lucy drop account they
ripped off his partner and pulled off the hundred thousand dollar scam as outlined in the book Silk Road in
exchange for not revealing any names or addresses friendly chemists asked the Dread Pirate Roberts for five hundred
thousand dollars explaining that he owed that amount to his suppliers the Dread Pirate Roberts response was for friendly
chemists to ask his suppliers to contact him directly to see if that could work something out
soon after the Dread Pirate Roberts was contacted by a new user going by the name red and white bread and white sent
a message that read I was asked to contact you where did the people friendly chemist those money - what do
you want to talk to us about the Dread Pirate Roberts responded that he wasn't too sure how to sort busier but he
wanted to come to a conclusion that would benefit everyone so if red and white was having problems
with a bad distributor referring to friendly chemist then they should start distributing themselves on Silk Road red
and white replied they'd be more than happy to join Silk Road once they got the money that was owed to them the
conversation between the two of them went back and forth for a few days until the Dread Pirate Roberts sent the
following message friendly chemist is a liability in a wouldn't mind if he was executed just after that message was
sent friendly chemist messaged the Dread Pirate Roberts and said he was giving him 72 hours before 5000 user details
and two dozen seller identities were released after getting this message the Dread Pirate Roberts changed his tune
with red and white he went from wouldn't mind if friendly chemist was executed to something more
certain he said I would like to put a bounty on his head if it's not too much trouble for you what would be an
adequate amount to motivate you to find him necessities like this do happened from time to time for a person in my
position the adequate amount for red and white ranged from $150,000 to $300,000 depending on the type of hit since Dread
Pirate Roberts had just paid $80,000 for the murder of Curtis green he felt the price was a bit higher and he asked red
and white if that was the best he could do red and white said it was because given the time frame friendly chemist
had said there wasn't much time before all those names got released they agreed on a one hundred and fifty thousand
dollar fee they settled on photographic proof just like Ross had done with Curtis green but the problem in this
case was that Ross didn't know who friendly chemist was in real life or what they looked like
so he gave red and white some numbers to be written down on a piece of paper in the place next to the body
the following day red and white reported back your problem has been taken care of
rest easy because he won't be blackmailing anyone again ever but that wasn't the end of it a few days later
red and white messaged the Dread Pirate Roberts again to let him know some new information when the men killed friendly
chemists they questioned him and he confessed that he was working with a partner in the blackmail and two that
partner was Tony 76 Tony 76 the seller who pulled the great 420 sale and giveaway scam on Silk Road users walking
away with about a quarter of a million dollars the biggest scam ever pulled on Silk Road red and white added their
friendly chemist had given up the real name of Tony 76 Dread Pirate Roberts responded I would like to go after Tony
76 if he's our man then he likely has substantial assets the bay recovered perhaps we can hold him and question him
red and white explained there was a problem Tony 76 lived with three of his drug-dealing partners and who they were
usually at home Dread Pirate Roberts answered that he just wanted Tony 76 to be hit but
red-and-white offered to kill Tony 76 and these three partners for half a million dollars red and white also
explained that there would be more chances of getting back the stolen money and perhaps more that they didn't even
know about if all of them were killed Ross thought about it and at the end of the day he came to a decision
he gave the go-ahead one week later red-and-white told the Dread Pirate Roberts that the problem
had been dealt with and he had one less thing to worry about Ross had now paid for six murders in total around at this
same time the FBI cybercrime division got involved in the Silk Road investigation FBI agent Cristobal had
actually been considering going after Silk Road for several months but he wasn't quite sure what the best strategy
would be and he was still debating that when he received a visit from a DEA agent in the beginning of 2013 the DEA
agent was from a team in New York the New York team was conducting their own investigation separate to the Chicago
and Baltimore based teams the agent explained that right after the Gawker article came here Senator Schumer had
given a very public announcement where he called on the DEA to shut Silk Road down but there was a problem the DEA
knew how to run drug investigations but they didn't know how to deal with computers and the Deep Web which was why
18 months had passed since Senator Schumer's announcement and the New York DEA team was still unsure how to go
about the case so they finally made the decision to approach the FBI cybercrime division for help
Tarbell and his cybercrime team listen to everything the agent had to say and then they made their decision they
weren't going to assist the DEA with Silk Road they were going to go off the Silk Road themselves on the face of it
the FBI cybercrime division had the exact opposite problem to the DEA they were fine with the technology side of
things but they didn't have experience in drug investigations however the New York DEA agent had mentioned something
that got their attention the leader of Silk Road the Dread Pirate Roberts was becoming more brazen in what was for
sale before it was mainly drugs but after that came firearms explosives and in our packing tools the FBI cybercrime
team immediately checked what hacking tools were for sale they found listings for keyloggers banking Trojans malware
applications spyware applications and much more they knew that's how they would get
inside the case Tarbell called the higher-ups of the agency presented his idea and two weeks later he was given
approval to open a case on Silk Road the cyber crime team started analyzing Silk
Road in detail and they came to a conclusion their chances of catching the Dread Pirate Roberts and shutting down
the site depended entirely on human error the technology Silk Road used was strong
both Tor and Bitcoin were built to help keep anonymity and that was what made the case such a painstaking ordeal to
anyone who crossed paths with it but they also knew that Tor Bitcoin in Silk Road would build been used by humans and
humans make mistakes so that's what the FBI cybercrime division waited for a mistake
and it came Ross had been dealing with security problems on Silk Road ever since it started and in May 2013 he had
a major one there was a coding error that made the IP address of the server go public
Ross immediately fixed the mistake and soon enough everything went back to normal the IP address of the server was
no longer showing but Ross was worried that if anyone was watching at that precise moment they might have noticed
it and he was right to be worried the FBI cybercrime team were watching even though Silk Road was in the Deep
Web that was still housed by a server and the code of that server had just been revealed
Christabel got to work locating it and he found it a few hours later it was in Iceland
if this server was the real Silk Road server and it hadn't been encrypted or erased they could have all the
information they needed on Silk Road Tarbell took that chance and traveled to Iceland he talked to the local
authorities and they said they would allow him access to the server it was agreed that they would send a Tarbell a
thumb drive containing all of the information on the Silk Road server Tarbell received this in June 2013 he
immediately showed the thumb drive to his computer scientist Thomas Keenan Keenan entered the thumb drive into his
computer and after a few seconds that were looking at all of the folders that he lost Silk Road but they were all
encrypted Tarbell couldn't believe it if the folders were encrypted they would never
be able to access them black variety Jones had said when he first told Ross to encrypt everything if you have good
encryption and a strong password the FBI could never find you kenan tried every trick he knew to beat
the encryption but nothing worked that looked like that was going to be at the end of the server lead until a few days
later Tarbell was talking on the phone with Assistant US Attorney Suren Turner from New York Turner was aware of the
server lead and Tarbell's trip to Iceland and he asked him if there had been any advances in the investigation
Tarbell said there hadn't been because they couldn't get past the encryption and Turner was confused
he asked what the passcode hadn't worked it was Tarbell's turn to be confused what passcode
Turner explained that the authorities in Iceland had sent him a pass code for the
encrypted files for some reason it wasn't passed on the Tarbell when he got the thumb drive but now he had it the
pass code was try to crack this NSA all the one-word Tarbell quickly ended the call and went
to see his computer scientist he gave him the passcode and it worked they were inside the encrypted files of Silk Road
on July 13th 2013 a deconfliction meeting was arranged by the Department of Justice that had come
to their attention that there were too many different agencies going after Silk Road and none of them were cooperating
with each other there was Jarod der-yeghiayan form homeland security in Chicago there was
the Marco Polo task force made up of agents from homeland security in Baltimore caryl force from the DEA Shawn
bridges from the Secret Service as well as people from the Postal Service there was the DEA in New York who were trying
to make something happen and Danelle there was the FBI cybercrime division another agency was also
represented at this deconfliction meeting Gary Alford who worked for the Criminal Investigation Division of the
IRS when the New York DEA requested the help of the FBI cybercrime division they
also requested help from the IRS Gary Alfred got involved in the investigation and moved officers to join
the New York DEA task force Gary's job was to follow the money when Gary was added to the task force he had
never heard of Silk Road but as soon as he started reading up on it he became hooked like most of the people working
on the case Gary wanted to be the one to find out who the Dread Pirate Roberts was he even
had a theory about how he was going to do it as detailed in the book American kingpin Gary was born in the summer of
1977 when a serial killer was terrorizing the city a man nicknamed the Son of Sam a huge investigation was
launched to try and catch him but they didn't seem to be any leads that is until an officer had the idea to go over
all the parking tickets that were placed on cars near the murder scenes he believed that the killer must have
parked his car near the location of the murders enduring at least one of them would have forgotten to feed the parking
meter and received a parking ticket as a result the idea was considered unusual but they went with it and after going
through thousands of parking tickets they found a pattern one man had gotten several tickets and
more than one linked him to the murder scenes the officers paid him a visit and he
confessed to being the Son of Sam [Music] Gary Alfred believed that's the way they
would catch the Dread Pirate Roberts only instead of parking tickets it would be through a trace he had left of
himself online working with this theory Gary followed everything the Dread Pirate Roberts had done and the like
Chicago based homeland security agent Jarod der-yeghiayan had done before him he studied the Dread Pirate Roberts
posts on Silk Road Gary started to build a profile and he concluded that the Dread Pirate Roberts was very educated
when it came to the United States political system so he was very likely from the US Gary found that in the early
posts from the Dread Pirate Roberts he would talk about how Silk Road was much safer than buying drugs in the street
where those people could rip you off or beat you up Gary found on those lines curious he also felt offended he'd been
born and raised in the housing projects in Brooklyn he grew up with many of the people that the Dread Pirate Roberts
described in his posts the people from the street who would rip you off or beat you up Gary didn't agree with those
views and it was for this reason he thought the Dread Pirate Roberts was most likely white and from the suburbs
afterwards he drew up a list of people he believed could possibly be the Dread Pirate Roberts among them those are men
who was outspoken and managed a web forum a man who worked with Bitcoin and a programmer who had libertarian views
he then came up with another theory adrian chen was the Dread Pirate Roberts Adriane was the author of the Gorka
article that have practically launched Silk Road gary thought that maybe adrienne was the Dread Pirate Roberts
and had written a piece for self-promotion the made sense since most people had never heard of Silk Road
before the article existed and the Carrie thought that if Adrian Chen was indeed the Dread Pirate Roberts then
maybe he had written something about Silk Road before the article Gary went to Google and searched for the Gawker
article again he read it over and over trying to find anything unusual or something he had missed before the thing
that stood out was that Silk Roads website didn't end in com but in god onion so he went to Google again and
tried searching Silk Road got onion which he hadn't done before he also filtered the results he set it so that
only results from before june 1st 2011 would appear that was the date the Gork article was published so if Adrian Chen
had written anything about the site before then the results would hopefully show it Gary didn't get many results but
he did say something that he thought was interesting a post in a forum called the
shrew Marie Gary read the post that was from January 27 2011 it was from someone
who said that they casually come across a website called Silk Road and they asked if anyone else had visited
gary saw that the post was written by someone who called themselves Altoid so he tried a new google search this time
he entered Silk Road got onion Altoid which led him to another post this time on the Bitcoin talk forum in a thread
about heroin someone calling themselves out - it was asking if anyone had heard of Silk Road Gary couldn't get these
posts from Altoid out of his mind he contacted the managers of both forums and explained he was an agent from the
government and he needed the name and email address that was linked to the Altoid accounts at first he was told
that Altoid had only left behind a fake email frosty at frosty calm but Gary insisted and further checks showed that
Altoid had actually used another email address when first registering his accounts but he soon deleted it and -
then entered the frosty address despite being deleted the original email address used to create the outer
accounts was still there Ross Ulbricht at gmail.com gary searched for Ross Ulbricht on
Google and found his LinkedIn account some things about Ross fit into his profile Ross was white and from the
suburbs but he didn't have something that seemed too vital for the Dread Pirate Roberts a computer science
background Russ had been a physicist Gary was far from convinced that Ross could be the Dread Pirate Roberts but he
still added him to his suspect list so at that deconfliction meeting held on July 13th between all of the different
agencies investigating Silk Road Gary Alfred from the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS was excited to share
what he had found Luke demboski presided over the meeting he was the highest ranking official in
the Department of Justice demboski explained that the main point of the meeting was to be open about everything
going on in everyone's different investigations so that the Department of Justice could make a knowledgeable
decision on who should lead the Silk Road case the ones who started with a Marco Polo task force from Baltimore
Karl force decided not to attend the meeting but those who did spoke of Karl's arrest of Curtis green they
didn't mention the full details though no mention that karl was posing as not one Silk Road and actually talking to
the Dread Pirate Roberts they left that part out but demboski was already aware of that detail so he asked the Baltimore
agents about their undercover account they said they couldn't talk about it because it was before a grand jury and
was classified demboski was part of that grand jury he was a major representative
of the Department of Justice the same department that made that information classified he tried to get the Baltimore
team to share what they had but they weren't budging everyone wanted the glory no one wanted to share information
things got hated and a break was called to allow everyone to call him when the meeting resumed Jarod
der-yeghiayan decided to speak up he was the chicago-based homeland security agent who was basically running
an investigation by himself before the meeting the Baltimore homeland security agents
warned - Jared not to share any important information they told him to stick to just the minimum because the
FBI would be at the meeting and do they would hear what he had to say steal the info pretended they came up
with it and take all the glory without giving Jared any credit but Jared saw how that stance played out for the
Baltimore team so he decided to take a risk and share everything he had Jared said that ever since October 2011 he had
seized almost three and a half thousand packages he explained how those packages
helped him to make a profile by comparing the packaging and the drugs to the listings on Silk Road this method
had resulted in him identifying several Silk Road sellers and he gave them the option to face the courts or to hand in
their Silk Road account they all took the option of handing in their Silk Road accounts Jared then accessed the sellers
accounts and pretended to be then everyone present at the deconfliction meeting got a far greater understanding
of how Silk Road worked thanks to Jared's presentation they were actually dumbfounded Jared had led an
investigation in Chicago practically on his own and seem to have gotten further than anyone else that was until the FBI
spoke the FBI broke the news to everyone in the room we have the server but they
explained they hadn't had a chance to properly go through it yet they needed more time before they could share what
they had demboski said they could have more time and then asked if anyone else in the room had anything to share
Gary Alfred from the IRS didn't say a word he had changed his mind he didn't share
anything he had found he felt that everyone in the room seemed to be in competition with each other
and what he had really didn't amount to much compared to the others so he kept it to himself when the meeting came to
an end demboski announced that the Department of Justice would analyze everything and
to then make a decision on who would lead the case around at the same time the FBI opened the encrypted files from
the Silk Road server Ross Ulbricht moved Ross was talking to nob and a nod told him that he knew a corrupt agent
involved in the Silk Road case they wouldn't mind giving away information for a price Ross had previously
mentioned how useful it would be to have someone from law enforcement providing information to them to help them stay
ahead Ross trusted nob as he still believed he was a smuggler who had made millions and who had managed to sale
floor enforcement's radar for years so he wasn't surprised when NOC told him about a corrupt investigator he knew
the investigator who nob called Kevin wasn't interested in justice he was interested in profit so he would be
perfect to help the Dread Pirate Roberts stay ahead nob told the Dread Pirate Roberts he could communicate with Kevin
using PGP an encrypted email and messaging service of course there was no corrupt agent going by the name of Kevin
Karl had made him up karl was going to be the one selling the Dread Pirate Roberts information and that's why he
needed to move to an encrypted chat he couldn't have anyone on the Baltimore task force seeing what it was up to but
the conversation he had just had wasn't non encrypted chat so Karl deleted the chat history mentioning Kevin and on
their reports he said there had been technical issues Karl successfully erased all talk of Kevin and corrupt
agents without anyone else from the task force noticing now acting is Kevin Karl
wouldn't need to erase anything because it was all unencrypted chat the task force wouldn't be able to see Carl's
conversations acting his corrupt agent Kevin Karl explained to the Dread Pirate Roberts that he would give him
information for a donation which would cost fifty thousand dollars if the tip was good what he told the Dread Pirate
Roberts initially was that the FBI was now looking phim certain authorities had arrested Silk Road sellers and were
accessing their accounts and the FBI had Silk Roads files from the server learning this information wasn't the
only reason that made Ross decide to move there was a lot going on he still wasn't sure how much Curtis Green had
shared about Silk Road before his murder he had just ordered the murders of five
other men as well Silk Road uses friendly chemist Tony 76 and 2/3 of Tony's partners plus Packers were still
getting into Silk Road and stealing money from him now with this new information Kevin had just given him
Ross thought it was time to make his emergency list a reality part of the list included destroying his laptop and
phone but Ross didn't believe Mathers had gotten that bad just yet destroying his laptop would mean destroying his
access to Silk Road he did believe Mathers had gotten bad enough to put the last lines of his emergency list into
action though find place to live on Craigslist for cash and create new identity name and a backstory
I found a room in a three-bedroom house on Craigslist for $1,200 the place seemed perfect since he would be
subletting a room inside a house already owned by someone else so there were no tracks leading to him especially since
he planned to pay in cash as for his new identity he created one that wasn't far
removed from who he actually was he introduced himself to the other occupants of the house as Joshua Terry
Joshua was 29 years old and was from Texas he worked as a currency trader and did some freelance IT work on the side
he recently returned from a trip to Sydney and he liked to keep to himself he spent most of his time working on his
computer he emphasized the fact that he did a lot of IT work and he spent a lot of time on his computer so that his new
roommates wouldn't grow suspicious and start wondering what he was up to Ross made his new identity close to his own
so he wouldn't forget any details if he built a complicated persona he ran the risk of tripping himself up his new room
was across town from where he was living in San Francisco with his friend Renee and Renee's girlfriend there was far
enough away that he wasn't worried about the people who knew him as Ross crossing
paths with his new roommates who knew him as Joshua Terry one of the first things Russ did when he moved was order
a fake ID in the name of Joshua Terry fake IDs were of course available on Silk Road so that's where he went at
this point there were 1 million users on Silk Road so you could find just about anything
Ross ordered the fake ID except he didn't order just one he ordered nine on July 10 2013 her Customs and Border
Protection Officer working at San Francisco International Airport was going through packages and envelopes
looking for anything out of the ordinary he came face-to-face with a set of three
envelopes that caught his attention the three envelopes were from Canada from three different addresses in Vancouver
there were three different senders listed on each envelope Burt Harris Cole Harris into Arnold Harris the three
envelopes had the same shape the same size and at the same handwriting sensing something was off the customs officer
completed a form that allowed him to open the envelopes and when he did he found nine fake identity cards in the
name of Joshua Terry he emailed the Homeland Security Investigations Department in San Francisco and an agent
attended the airport to check it out the homeland security agents saw the ID cards were addressed to the same person
and all nine of them had the same picture only the picture had been slightly altered on each one so the
person looked slightly different the agent visited the house where the fake IDs were headed but when he arrived at
2260 15th Street a man who didn't speak English open the door so the homeland security agent left with
no answers it was two weeks later on July 26 2013 that the agent realized he'd gone to the wrong address he
couldn't get the nine fake ID cards out of his head and he had another look at the envelopes that's when he realized
they were addressed to 15th Avenue not 15th Street by this time he was busy with something else so he sent to other
San Francisco homeland security agents in his place as the two agents walked towards the front door of 2260 15th
Avenue one of them pulled out the fake IDs to have another look before asking questions when they reached the door the
same agent was about to knock when he saw a man standing on the other side of the door wearing nothing but shorts
there was the men whose picture was on the fake identity cards cross Albrecht froze the two men in suits staring at
him from outside the front door could only mean one thing he managed to compose himself and slowly open to the
door to be continued [Music] you [Music]

Case 76: Silk Road (Part 2)

[Part 2 of 3]

Nob and the Dread Pirate Roberts started to communicate regularly. The Dread Pirate Roberts had no idea he was really speaking to a DEA agent. And the DEA agent had no idea about the true identity of the Dread Pirate Roberts...

CREDITS

Narration – Anonymous Host Research and writing – Victoria Dieffenbacher Production, scoring – Mike Migas Additional scoring – Andrew Joslyn

SOCIAL LINKS

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RESOURCES

For all credits and sources please visit https://www.casefilepodcast.com/case-76-silk-road-part-2

Brief Summary

Ross Ulbricht's Silk Road faces internal conflict and law enforcement pressure, leading to drastic measures and multiple murders.

Key points

Ross Ulbricht's Startup Journey. Ross contemplates moving to San Francisco to build a startup with a friend.
Tensions Rise Over Silk Road Ownership. Variety Jones demands co-ownership of Silk Road, leading to a heated argument.
Ross's Escape Plan. Ross travels to Dominica to expedite citizenship and escape scrutiny.
Silk Road's Movie Night Controversy. Critics questioned the authenticity of the Dread Pirate Roberts after a movie night.
The Hidden Wikipedia Scam. Users fell victim to a scam that cloned Silk Road's site, leading to stolen bitcoins.
Curtis Greene's Arrest. Curtis Greene, a key Silk Road moderator, is arrested, raising suspicions about his loyalty.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I'm finished. Someone else was running it.

Ross tells Julia about giving up Silk Road.

6:59WatchNov 20, 2018

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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