Ross Ulbricht, sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for creating the dark web market Silk Road, is free.
Ulbricht is a freedom fighter to some, and a dangerous criminal to others. The former Ulbricht is known as Described in Forbes“a principled libertarian and cypherpunk in the same vein as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.”
Ulbricht had a theory that violent drug gangs would have no chance of sustaining themselves in a free market environment where the state had no control over substance use, because nonviolent operations would simply outcompete violent operations based on demand.
Most who believe the latter, however, often base their opinion on allegations that Ulbricht tried to hire a hitman on a former Silk Road administrator, who was accused of embezzling bitcoin from the site. While Ulbricht’s supporters celebrate, critics wonder: Why is the online community so fiercely defending the attempted murderer?
Therefore, we should not forget the controversies and outright corruption that surrounded Ulbricht’s trial.
Charges against Ulbricht
On February 5, 2015, a jury was convened in the Southern District of New York Ulbricht was found guilty of exclusively non-violent crimes, including numerous counts of drug distribution, computer hacking, conspiracy to conduct a criminal enterprise, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The judge sentenced Ulbricht to life in prison plus forty years without the possibility of parole — nearly double the sentence given to violent Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
The alleged murder arose out of rental charges From a different issueintroduced in May 2013 in Maryland. The indictment alleged that based on chat logs obtained from the Silk Road website, Ulbricht attempted to kill Curtis Green to steal bitcoin from the project.
As chat logs read according to the indictment, Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR), the alias attributed to Ulbricht, wrote to another Silk Road user, who he believed was a drug dealer capable of giving orders to a hitman:
“I would beat him up, (sic) and then be forced to send him the bitcoins he stole back. (sic) like sit him in front of his computer and make him do it.”
A day later, the indictment says, DPR allegedly changed his mind, writing: “Can you change the order for execution instead of torture?”
According to the indictment, DPR stated that Green “has been inside for a while, and now that he’s been arrested, I’m afraid he’s going to give up information,” adding that he’s “never killed a man before, but this is the right move in this case.”
A few days later, $40,000 was transferred to the killer’s account, and DPR requested “proof of death” via video or photos to send the rest of the amount.
On February 21, 2013, the DPR gang leader reported that Green was dead – “They killed him this weekend,” he wrote, telling him that he had died of suffocation, and that the body had been completely destroyed to remove evidence.
Except the gang leader wasn’t a leader. It was DEA Agent Carl Force who, as it turned out, liked to get involved in a small criminal enterprise himself when he had the opportunity.
Real robbery and fake murder
During the investigation, Green was cooperating with law enforcement, giving DEA Agent Carl Force and Secret Service Agent Sean Bridges Access to the Silk Road website.
During one Silk Road enforcement hearing, a series of “major thefts” occurred on the site, which could later be traced back to Bridges, who plead guilty for stealing $350,000 in bitcoin at the time of the robbery, or $800,000 at the time of his guilty plea.
The account in question, managed by Bridges and in consultation with Force, received “at least 20,000 bitcoins,” according to the site. Complaint. Force, posing as drug kingpin “Nob”, organized the fake hit and faked Green’s death with Bridges.
Force went on to create a fake “Death from Above” identity to extort $250,000 from the DRC, saying, “I know you had something to do with (Green’s) disappearance and death. I just wanted to let you know I’m coming for you.” You (…) are a dead man. Don’t think you can elude me.
Bridges was sentenced to 24 months in prison to be served consecutively to the 71 months he received for a similar offense in 2015, while Force was sentenced to 78 months. The information regarding the corrupt agents was never made available for use in Ulbricht’s defense.
Who is the scary pirate Roberts?
Dreadful Pirate Roberts, the pseudonym attributed to Ulbricht, is taken from the 1973 novel “The Princess Bride” by William Goldman, which depicts an identity assumed by multiple characters. The identity of the Dreadful Pirate Roberts, as written by Goldman, is shared among pirates to intimidate opponents, and is transmitted in secret.
In the course of the overall proceedings of the case, evidence mounted that the DPR of Silk Road was not managed by Ulbricht alone. In a conversation with his former friend Richard Bates, who helped Ulbricht create the Silk Road website, Ulbricht responded with “Glad this isn’t my problem anymore,” she said when she learned of news coverage about the site.
During the trial, prosecutors tried Stop defending From the questioning of another law enforcement officer, Special Agent Jared Der Yejiayan of the Department of Homeland Security, who believed that DPR was actually Mark Capellis – the former CEO of Mt. Gox, who was later convicted of falsifying records for Mt. Gox and inflated the stock market value of the offering by tens of millions.
Der-Yeghiayan had referenced an exclusive interview with DPR in Forbes, where the pseudonymous Silk Road operator stated that he “did not actually create Silk Road, but instead befriended its creator and later acquired the site from him.”
According to Der Yejiayan, DBR’s writings appeared to be very similar to those of the suspect, Mark Capellis – and Der Yegiayan was not the only one to claim that DPR sounded like someone else. As former Dark Wallet developer Amir Taki male:
“Years ago, when I corresponded with Silk Road, I had a conversation with the DPRK — a very personal conversation where he was[talking]about how he hoped to one day be out there fighting for freedom together. You know, not having to hide his identity after a year (Or) a couple of years later when I corresponded with the guy – I’m sure it wasn’t the same guy and the attitude towards me was in stark contrast to the spirited and wordy DPRK of the early days.
This argument was also supported by a pseudonymous Silk Road salesman, who stated that “there were at least two other people – if not three – who were running the Silk Road.” Der Yejiayan confirms this belief in an email ten days before Ulbricht’s arrest, This is useful “We contributed to the escape of other supervisors.”
Silk Road employee Andrew Jones, who had a “secret handshake” with Ulbricht in 2012 to confirm his identity, did not believe the late DPR was Ulbricht either.
According to court documents, Jones was asking DPR for a book recommendation, to which the correct answer was “Anything by Rothbard” — an answer DPR did not provide Not provided When asked a year later.
To add intellectual insult to surgical injury, someone had You log in to your DPR account Six weeks after the arrest of Ulbricht, who was in federal custody at the time – and who may have been the corrupt agents, who had administrative access to the site, or another DPR together.
like He declared it Greene himself: “And to everyone who says ‘have there been many Republican representatives’, of course there have been – I was vice president once. So, if I was, who else was it?”
Regarding the murder-for-hire charges, Green stated He did not believe Ulbricht would have ordered the hit on him. As Green stated in 2017:
“Ross Ulbricht got a raw deal. There’s a lot people know about the Silk Road story that I can’t talk about yet. I don’t think Ross is dangerous or it’s in his character to order the hit. He shouldn’t have gotten that rough sentence.”
To cut to the chase: yes, Ross Ulbricht ran Silk Road. No, Ross Ulbricht likely wasn’t the only person with access to the DPR account. Ross Ulbricht was never convicted of murder-for-hire charges. The case was dismissed in 2018 with prejudice, meaning it can’t be brought again.
For all we know, we’re all Dreadful Pirate Roberts.