Who is Ross Ulbricht
Ross Ulbricht was a libertarian. He believed that the government shouldn’t tell us what we can and can’t do. He believed it wasn’t the government’s job to save us. He justified this by saying “if it’s their job to save us, why not ban fast food.”
Ross Ulbricht dreamed of a place where anyone could buy anything. Whether it was Illegal or not. Soon Ross would discover the infamous Tor browser. The Tor browser through onion routing allows its users to maintain anonymity. As well as access sites that are not available on the regular web. Ross saw this as the perfect platform to make his dream a reality. One problem was there was no way to take payment that would maintain anonymity. All card transactions are reported to the bank. As well as disclose information about the buyer to the seller.
Then Ross learned about bitcoin. Due to the way currency is traded between bitcoin wallets the digital transactions are completely anonymous. This discovery would be the catalyst for the creation of Silk Road.
The Start of Silk Road
Ross would start working on Silk Road. Too afraid to tell anyone about the illegal project he would have to work on it all by himself. He would spend countless nights coding until January 2011. The site would finally be ready to launch. However he would need to have something to sell to start attracting buyers. Ross would end up buying a vacant building to start growing his own magic mushrooms.
Once the magic mushrooms were ready Ross would create the first ever listing on Silk Road. However he still had to do some advertising to make people aware of the site. But he couldn’t just post “BUY DRUGS HERE” on some forum. So Ross posted in a psychedelic mushroom forum pretending to be a user of silk road. He posed as a user because he didn’t want his post to seem like an ad.
The site would soon gain some traction. Sellers would start making their way to the platform and adding drugs from all categories. With commission from all sales across the platform Silk Road was now making thousands in just a few months. With the addition of so many users Ross added a rating system. So people can rate buyers and separate the trusted sellers from the rest.
Countrywide Impact
With all of this new found money Ross was able to enjoy the finer things in life. Ross would take his girlfriend Julia to very expensive restaurants all over the U.S. Julia and Ross had moved in together so she saw the creation of Silk Road. At first she wasn’t completely against the idea. But that would soon change. One day Ross saw that someone had started posting guns on the site. Ross was able to rationalize that every American has the right to buy guns. Julia then asked Ross “ Why would anyone need to buy a gun from an illegal website?” this would put huge stress on their relationship.
With the site growing so big and the amount of drugs being so accessible. Naturally a lot of drug related problems started to arise. Overdoses started rising in the United states and would later spread world wide. The media would pick up on this and start running stories on Silk Road reportedly calling it the amazon of illegal substances. When Julia saw these stories she ordered Ross to shut the site down. She issued an ultimatum telling Ross to shut it down or move out. Ross moved out..
paranoia
One day like any other he woke up and checked facebook to see that Erica a friend of Julia had posted a comment saying “ I’m sure the authorities would like to know about Ross Ulbricht’s drug website.” Luckily the post was private so only friends of hers could see it and Ross was able to take it down. Ross was infuriated he had told Julia not to tell anyone. However the post was only made because Erica had a bad trip off a substance she bought from the site. Erica later apologized. But this was enough for Ross to feel like he needed to get out of town till things cooled off.
Ross reportedly spent this time backpacking through Asia and spending time in Vietnam during the lunar new year. Although Ross couldn’t just lead silk road he did have to moderate the site and make sure everything was running smoothly. Ross made a practice of going to WIFI cafes to work and keep up with the site. He always sat in a secluded spot away from everyone else. Ross was so paranoid that someone would look over his shoulder and see him that he actually programmed a button to turn off the screen.
The Expansion of Silk Road
With the site consistently Growing Ross was starting to have trouble keeping up with the bugs. He was also having trouble dealing with moderation as there were so many people. This forced Ross to hire people to help with the site. He chose 10 people who were consistently active on Silk Road. He hired extra moderators as well as people to help fix his shotty coding.
Over time new categories were being added. Silk Road now sold hacking exploits as well as forged documents like passports and ID’s. Then one day Ross woke up to a message from one of his moderators. The moderator asked Ross if people should be allowed to sell kidneys. Ross, not wanting to infringe on a completely free market, let the seller sell kidneys. The seller exclaimed that the kidneys had been obtained consensually.
The Community of Silk Road
Silk Road was now becoming a movement for its users. With a truly free market and anti government sentiment it’s users were becoming a community. Admin would host movie nights where they would all start a movie at the same time and watch together. They even created sign up referral competitions and the user who got the most sign ups would win a free illegal substance. One of the winners of this challenge would go missing soon after winning. Ross even made a joke to one of his moderators saying “maybe a better prize would have been rehab.”
Ross one day would start chatting with an active user on the site who went by the name VarietyJones. VarietyJones and Ross would end up becoming good friends. Ross and VarietyJones, sharing a love for the movie The Princess Bride, came up with the alias Dread Pirate Roberts. With the idea being that it was a name that was passed down it would obscure when exactly Ross was involved in Silk Road, or so he thought.
The Breakthrough
The FBI and DEA struggled for years to get anything significant and Silk Road. It would come as a shock when the biggest Breakthrough in the case would come from an IRS agent named Gary Alford. His job was to track the money being trafficked through Silk Road. Gary was an outside the box thinker. He saw that everyone had been trying to trace accounts to names. Gary thought it was best to start at the beginning. Where was the first ever mention of silk road.
Gary in his search would find the first ever post about Silk Road. It was Ross’s first ever post on a magic mushroom forum. Upon looking into the account he found that the user had posted questions about tor site development. As well as an ad requesting help for a bitcoin startup. The ad included an email belonging to Ross Ulbricht. Although Gary couldn’t be sure this was the owner of the site. Gary did some further research finding the social media for Ross Ulbricht. Looking through Ross’s socials Gary found tons of anti government postings. Then Gary found Ross Ulbricht’s LinkedIn account. The LinkedIn account detailed a marketplace where anyone could buy anything.
Developments in The Case
However Gary wasn’t being informed about developments going on in the case. The police had tracked down a server belonging to Silk Road. The way they were able to do this is still highly controversial and widely debated. Its believed that the NSA was involved in using experimental exploits that would violate Ross’s right to privacy. The FBI claims that they exploited a simple vulnerability in the site’s code. Which is very possible considering Ross’s shotty coding. Either way this made it possible to see where and when the admin logged in. They eventually traced the IP address to an internet cafe in San Francisco. When Gary finally brought his findings to the FBI it put the whole puzzle together.
Gary brought them the name Ross Ulbricht. After doing research they found Ross lived just a few blocks from the cafe. Ross also had a prior run in with the law. Authorities intercepted a package of fake ID’s going to Ross’s house. Upon confronting Ross, he said well you can buy anything online now. Considering laws on online purchases were a little fuzzy at the time they let him off with a warning. With this being on file they knew this was the guy.
The Arrest
Now all they had to do was catch him. Which wasn’t going to be easy. In order to get Ross with anything they had to catch him with his computer open. If he had time to close it then all data would be encrypted and almost impossible to retrieve.
October 1, 2013, the day started like any other for Ross. he would stop by the cafe and look for a place to work. That day though it was too crowded. Instead Ross went to the San Francisco public library. However unknown to Ross the library was filled with undercover FBI agents. Once Ross found a place to sit down and sign in it was time for the agents to make their move. They started by faking a fight between a couple behind him. Once he turned his head an agent that was next to him grabbed the laptop and swiftly moved away then three agents came from behind him to make the arrest.
They had finally got him. Although he wouldn’t be the last arrest in this case. When the FBI started going through the chat logs between Ross and his associates. They found that one of the DEA agents on the task force assigned to Silk Road had been receiving bribes from Ross for information about the case. But receiving bribes wasn’t all the DEA agent did.
Dirty Agents
One of the men Ross hired to moderate his site was one Curtis Green. One day Curtis received a large shipment of cocaine to his house. When he went outside to get it the DEA swarmed in and put him under arrest. Naturally Ross noticed that Curtis wasn’t responding to any of his messages.
Ross checked a joint escrow account that Curtis had access to for site funds and noticed that 300,000 dollars was missing. Ross first idea was to hire a man to track down Curtis and get his money back and maybe rough him up a little. However when Ross brought this incident to VarietyJones, Jones convinced him to have Curtis killed. Jones said he needed to send a message to anyone that would try to cross him in the future
One problem though is it wasn’t Curtis who stole the money it was a DEA agent who had arrested Curtis. The agent, noticing the funds account was open on Curtis’s laptop took a few seconds to secretly send some funds to his bitcoin wallet. The DEA agent hearing about how Ross wanted to put a hit out on Curtis offered a helping hand. The DEA agent said he knew a contract killer who could do it for 40k up front 40k on delivery.
The DEA agent would end up faking the death of Curtis and sending a picture to Ross. Ross believed it and rationalized it by saying the guy stole from him and it was necessary. After this, Ross would end up ordering 4 more hits. All of which were staged by the same two agents. Eventually those agents would get caught and would get 6 years in prison.
The Trial
Finally Ross would stand trial. He would be facing 7 charges. distributing narcotics, distributing narcotics by means of the Internet, conspiring to distribute narcotics, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to commit computer hacking, conspiring to traffic in false identity documents, and conspiring to commit money laundering. Despite all of the evidence that the authorities found, Ross would still plead not guilty.
Following the plea Ross’s lawyers would argue that the website was a social experiment. Ross had stated it as an experiment and it kept growing and got out of control. Because Ross could no longer control the site he sold it to a person by the name of Dread Pirate Roberts. They argued that Ross had no involvement after the alleged sale of the site.
Unfortunately the evidence was stacked against ross. Due to them having access to the computer at the time of the arrest there was so much evidence against him. His lawyers tried to argue that the diary found on the computer was planted but the judge and the jury didn’t believe that. Considering the chat logs went back years it was highly unlikely it was planted.
They had the chat logs that showed when VarietyJones and Ross came up with the alias Dread Pirate Roberts. There was evidence that showed Dread Pirate Roberts needed fake ID’s around the same time that Ross’s fake ID’s were seized. There was no doubt in the courtroom that Ross was Dread Pirate Roberts. The authorities had a documented paper trail showing that Ross was still receiving commission from the site. It was clear Ross never sold it.
Public Opinion and The Letter
During the trial there was protest. People argued that Ross was responsible for people selling this stuff. If he was then Ebay and Craigslist should stand trial too. Regardless, Ross was found guilty on all charges. Before Ross was sentenced he wrote a letter for the judge.
The letter read :
“I’ve had my youth and I know you must take away my middle years but please leave me with my old age please leave a small light at the end of the tunnel an excuse to stay healthy an excuse to dream better days ahead and a chance to redeem myself in the free world before I meet my maker”
Despite the letter the judge felt no sympathy. Ross was sentenced to 2 life sentences and 40 years in prison. He would be forced to forfeit $183,961,921. In other words Ross would spend the rest of his life behind bars.
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