silk road https://truthvoice.com Wed, 22 May 2019 11:26:55 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.0.3 https://i0.wp.com/truthvoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-truthvoice-logo21-1.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 silk road https://truthvoice.com 32 32 194740597 How a Corrupt FBI Agent Threatened to Kidnap and Torture my Friend https://truthvoice.com/2015/09/how-a-corrupt-fbi-agent-threatened-to-kidnap-and-torture-my-friend/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-a-corrupt-fbi-agent-threatened-to-kidnap-and-torture-my-friend Mon, 28 Sep 2015 09:15:31 +0000 http://truthvoice.com/2015/09/how-a-corrupt-fbi-agent-threatened-to-kidnap-and-torture-my-friend/
Ulbricht Family

The Ulbricht Family

by Virgil Vaduva

“We are all at the mercy of tyrants but sometimes beauty shines through all their tyranny and we can find joy in small things” – those were my words forwarded to Ross in prison by his mom Lyn

Lyn Ulbricht is mostly soft spoken, and you would never know about her heartache and passion unless you ask about Ross Ulbricht, her son. Every time I see her she gives me a big hug, smiles brightly and first asks me about the family and the kids. She usually looks tired but determined to continue to get justice for Ross, who was sentenced to life in prison for running The Silk Road. She is a heart-broken mother who’s life has been turned upside down by a failed justice system, manufactured chargescorrupt FBI agents, DEA lies and an out of control judge.

Now information made public within the last 24 hours seems to actually prove virtually everything Lyn has been saying about the investigation into Silk Road, with all the plot twists and turns of a foreign spy film, everything from hackers, blackmail and even kidnapping, torture and perhaps murder.

The original Silk Road developer and architect going by the name of Variety Jones has been in hiding since the Silk Road arrests were made public, but he has suddenly come out of hiding with an incredible story about a corrupt FBI agent who has been attempting to hunt him down and force him to give him access to a bitcoin wallet worth 300,000 bitcoins or roughly about $75 million.

Variety Jones’ real name or identity is ultimately irrelevant. La Moustache has done extensive work on tracking him down and identifying him, and all the signs point to Variety Jones being a Canadian going by the name of Thomas Clark who currently lives in Thailand. He has been active on various online forums for years, especially forums discussing the cultivating of Marijuana.

The lengthy post made by Clark on the forum MyPlanetGanja.com outlines in detail the exploits of what he believes to be an FBI agent (using the monicker Diamond) forcefully attempting to gain access to tens of millions of dollars worth of stolen Silk Road bitcoin. The FBI agent spent the previous couple of years attempting to befriend Clark in order to gain access to Ross Ulbricht’s bitcoin wallet, and ultimately, when Clark turned him down, the agent went mental:

“He went fucking mental, and started going on about his backup plan. He would kidnap Ross Ulbrichts sister, or mother, or ideally both. Get a video capable phone in front of Ross Ulbricht, and he’d give up that fucking pass phrase, and Diamond would have them tortured until he did…”

Personally knowing Lyn Ulbricht and what kind of person she is brings me to feeling quite enraged about these new revelations. It is difficult to imagine what kind of psychopath would take to even think up such a scenario, nonetheless, here it is, the wide open mind of a dangerous, mentally ill man with access to virtually unlimited resources, LEO capabilities, funds and technical infrastructure capable of sustained cyber-terrorism.

Clark’s PGP signature and history of posting activity on MyPlanetGanja confirm his identity. While I guess the story itself could be manufactured, that is a very remote possibility as he has provided copies of signed PGP messages to the FBI.

Clark’s efforts to unmask the real identity of Diamond were not successful. He eventually gave up the hunt and decided to contact Serrin Turner, the Silk Road investigator responsible for the work behind the Silk Road trial and research. This was back in March. Turner has not yet responded, and the signed PGP messages confirm the communication is legit; at least the signed messages check out. VICE also confirms that they verified through back channels that Clark is legit and he is who he claims to be.

After months without reply from the FBI, Clark finally went public with his story, outlining in painful detail the conversations, exchanges and plans the criminal FBI agent had for the Ulbricht family, including torture and perhaps even murder.

Clark made it clear that he is not turning in because he is afraid of the FBI, rather he is turning himself in to protect Lyn and her daughter from what appears to be a well-funded, violent and psychopathic FBI agent who is ready to go to any length in order to gain access to a large stash of bitcoin.

And to make matters even more interesting, earlier today the FBI confirmed they are investigating Clark’s allegations. In a comment made to VICE, an FBI spokesman said,

“We are aware of the allegations made by Variety Jones and have forwarded them to the appropriate office for review. The FBI takes claims of employee misconduct seriously as we are an agency with the mission of upholding the law.”

I’m really not sure how seriously the FBI is taking claims of employee misconduct, especially considering the fact that they were notified about Diamond’s threats of kidnapping and torturing months ago.

And one thing is certain, the idea of kidnapping and torturing a woman, especially someone who is a family friend, is prompting some very strong feelings of anger towards Diamond and the incompetence of the FBI to root out serious corruption in their midst. It’s repulsive and inhuman. Nothing justifies this kind of behavior.

Note: Lyn was unable to comment on this article and on the recent developments related to Variety Jones as her attorneys advised her to avoid public statements.


Virgil Vaduva is a Libertarian security professional, journalist, photographer and overall liberty freak. He spent most of his life in Communist Romania and participated in the 1989 street protests which led to the collapse of the Ceausescu regime. He can be reached at vvaduva at truthvoice.com.

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Secret Service Agent to Plead Guilty for Theft of Silk Road Bitcoin, Second Agent Held Without Bail https://truthvoice.com/2015/06/secret-service-agent-to-plead-guilty-for-theft-of-silk-road-bitcoin-second-agent-held-without-bail/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=secret-service-agent-to-plead-guilty-for-theft-of-silk-road-bitcoin-second-agent-held-without-bail Mon, 29 Jun 2015 08:56:56 +0000 http://truthvoice.com/2015/06/secret-service-agent-to-plead-guilty-for-theft-of-silk-road-bitcoin-second-agent-held-without-bail/
carl-force-shaun-bridges

Left: former Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges; Right: former DEA agent Carl Force

A former Secret Service agent charged with stealing over $800,000 worth of bitcoin during an investigation will plead guilty to a number of charges, according to court documents filed Wednesday by federal prosecutors.

Shaun Bridges, a computer forensics specialist working for the Secret Service, was charged in connection with the theft after investigators claim he obtained credentials to the now-defunct Silk Road, an online free marketplace famous for facilitating the peaceful trade of narcotics and other contraband. Bridges was in a position to obtain the credentials because he was involved in the arrest of a Silk Road associate who managed the marketplace’s passwords.

After being charged earlier this month, Bridges resigned from his position with the Secret Service. Bridges is expected to plead guilty to money laundering and obstruction of justice.

Another agent involved in the theft, former Drug Enforcement Administration agent Carl Force, has also been charged with extortion of Ross Ulbricht, whom investigators believe to be the person behind the alias Dread Pirate Roberts, former operator of the Silk Road. Force worked undercover for the DEA and was tasked with communicating with Ulbricht.

Ulbricht was sentenced in February to life in prison after being convicted in an extremely contentious trial which has sparked protests and condemnation from around the world. It is not yet known whether the arrest of the agents will aid in any possible appeals Ulbricht may file.

Force faces a number of other charges including conflict of interest, money laundering, wire fraud, and theft of government property. Like Bridges, Force also resigned from his position shortly after being charged.

Force is currently behind bars after a judge denied bail, agreeing with prosecutors that Force is a flight risk.

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Reason Magazine Subpoena Backfires, Anonymous Doxes Silk Road Judge Again https://truthvoice.com/2015/06/reason-magazine-subpoena-backfires-anonymous-doxes-silk-road-judge-again/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=reason-magazine-subpoena-backfires-anonymous-doxes-silk-road-judge-again Sat, 13 Jun 2015 08:56:25 +0000 http://truthvoice.com/2015/06/reason-magazine-subpoena-backfires-anonymous-doxes-silk-road-judge-again/
Reason Magazine Subpoena Backfires, Anonymous Doxes Silk Road Judge Again

by Virgil Vaduva

UPDATE:  Since the publishing of this article PH1K3 posted a short note online addressing some of the questions I posted to him. Among other things he stated:

The govs will take every chance they gets to exploit US . to You that fear the gov i can say this:my code and countless others will be fighting 4 freedom of information,like i have said before we are the real coders and we are the ones who fights 4 the internet to be free.custome code will allways win against fgt gov code…..Ross Ulbricht did nothing wrong and the only crime was the one she made when she sent an programmer to jail

ORIGINAL STORY: Only a few days after I covered the fact that Reason Magazine revealed that lawyers from the Southern District of New York subpoenaed them in an effort to identify the people behind some comments posted on the reason.com website, members of Anonymous Sweden yet again posted public information about Judge Katherine Forrest, who was the sitting judge in the trial of Ross Ulbricht, the young man behind the dark net website Silk Road.

Judge Doxing

Someone using the handle PH1K3 (and @_Anonymous_swe_ on Twitter) published a ghostbin note where he posted sensitive details about Forrest, including her social security number, birth date, home address and home telephone number. Pictures of the judge’s alleged house in New York were also posted in various places online.

Forrester Alleged House

A picture being floated in the underground hacking community purporting to be the house of Judge Katherine Forrest

PH1K3 indirectly confirmed to me that he was indeed behind the publishing of the information about Forrest but did not answer additional follow up questions I asked about his opinions about the judge or the trial of Ross Ulbricht. The general sense throughout the underground hacktivist community is what the document published states, namely that “THE JUDGE WILL PAY FOR WHAT SHE DID.” The message “FREE ROSS ULBRICHT” also appears throughout many of the statements and documents published by members of Anonymous.

In May 2015, PH1K3 also claimed that he hacked an NSA e-mail server hosted by Quest in an interview the the website The Cryptosphere.


Virgil Vaduva is a Libertarian security professional, journalist, photographer and overall liberty freak. He spent most of his life in Communist Romania and participated in the 1989 street protests which led to the collapse of the Ceausescu regime. He can be reached at vvaduva at truthvoice.com.

 

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Critics of Silk Road Judge Targeted With Grand Jury Subpoenas https://truthvoice.com/2015/06/ross-ulbricht-defenders-targeted-by-federal-subpoena-for-internet-comments-about-judge/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ross-ulbricht-defenders-targeted-by-federal-subpoena-for-internet-comments-about-judge Tue, 09 Jun 2015 11:26:55 +0000 http://truthvoice.com/2015/06/ross-ulbricht-defenders-targeted-by-federal-subpoena-for-internet-comments-about-judge/
dbpix-forrest-videoSixteenByNine600

Judge Katherine Forrest was the judge in the trial of Ross Ulbricht.

by Virgil Vaduva

Even outrage is now a crime in the empire of lies. The Department of Justice is apparently not happy with just  sending Ross Ulbricht to prison for the rest of his life. Now they want to punish the public who is outraged by the behavior of the judge in his trial.

We just found out that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York has issued a grand jury subpoena to Reason Magazine, a libertarian publication that often covers liberty-oriented issues and pieces. The subpoena can be read here (The Reason Magazine Grand Jury Subpoena)

The subpoena is dated June 2 and commands Reason to provide the grand jury “any and all identifying information” Reason has about participants in what it is referring to as a “chat.”  The comments in question were part of a discussion thread on an article authored by Nick Gillespie titled “Silk Road Trial: Read Ross Ulbricht’s Haunting Sentencing Letter to Judge.”

Many of the comments that may be perceived as being “questionable” are now gone and appear to have been deleted by the folks at Reason.  A short list of the comments in question were archived by Popehat, and none of them appear to be outright threats directed at this judge, rather just generic and frustrated statements about her actions:

AgammamonI5.31.15 @ lO:47AMltt
Its judges like these that should be taken out back and shot.

AlanI5.31.15 @ 12:09PMltt
It’s judges like these that will be taken out back and shot.
FTFY.

croakerI6.1.15 @ 11:06AMltt
Why waste ammunition? Wood chippers get the message across clearly. Especially if you
feed them in feet first.

Cloudbusterl6.l.15 @ 2:40PMIIt
Why do it out back? Shoot them out front, on the steps of the courthouse.

Rhywunl5.3l.15 @ 11:35AMIIt
I hope there is a special place in hell reserved for that horrible woman.

AlanI5.31.15 @ 12:11PMIIt
There is.

Product PlacementI5.31.15 @ 1:22PMIIt
I’d prefer a hellish place on Earth be reserved for her as well.

croakerl6.l.15 @ 11:09AMIIt
Fuck that. I don’t want to oay for that cunt’s food, housing, and medical. Send her through
the wood chipper.

US Attorney Preet Bharara

US Attorney Preet Bharara

The subpoena, which is authored by United States Attorney Preet Bharara and signed by Assistant Attorney Niketh Velamoor claims that it is seeking “evidence in regard to an alleged violation of: Title 18, United States Code, Section 875.” This U.S. Attorney is looking for evidence of violations of the federal law against interstate threats which is the same statute that was at issue in the Supreme Court’s decision in Elonis v. U.S. last week, in which the Court decided that to be a “true threat” in violation of Section 875, the speaker must have some level of knowledge or intent that the hearer will take the threat seriously.

The political nature of the subpoena is quite transparent. According to his profile, Preet Bharara has made a career out of prosecuting cases related to “terrorism” and the war on drugs in the Southern District of New York.  This means that he appears before this particular judge almost daily for various cases; the subpoena appears to be little more than a political favor to this judge and also perhaps a subtle threat to the rest of the online dissenters out there: be careful who you criticize, and how you do it…or else.

Regardless of how one feels about the trial of Ross Ulbricht or his personal exploits, liberty advocates should be out on the roof tops shouting their outrage over this attack on online speech. It is ludicrous to claim that comments such as “he/she should be shot on the steps of the courthouse” are to be construed as actual threats, especially if the individual in question is a “public servant” or someone involved in making public and controversial decisions on a daily basis. As a journalist I have seen it all myself, including death threats received from anonymous critics. I shrug them off, put on my Glock and move on.

The implication here is that not only should we, the members of the public, accept what amount to outrageous, unconstitutional and tyrannical decisions from our “servants,” but that we must do so silently and without any outward sign of displeasure in accepting these decisions.  In essence, there is a clear expectation on the part of the ruling elite for the general public to accept, without questioning, their assault on our public liberties and freedoms.

The judge in this case, Katherine Forrest, has been doxed several times in the last year, by users of 4chan, 8chan and the TOR site, The Hidden Wiki. Her home address, telephone number and other information, none of which would be considered to be private for the rest of us, was published and then subsequently removed from all these forums.

bolan-dox-redacted

A redacted screen shot from The Hidden Wiki showing some information about Katherine Forrest

So the question is, how can a federal judge and a government attorney, who are both paid through coercive taxation by the American people, be in a position where their actions are outside of the scope of “outrage” that we as the public have the right to express? Let us pretend for one moment that this judge did in fact err in her decision to sentence Ross Ulbricht to life in prison. What recourse do we have in this situation? One basic right is to take the outrage online and post online, sometimes angrily, about how this judge has violated her oath of office.

So if this very basic right to speak against decisions made by government bureaucrats is scrutinized and threatened with subpoenas, what else can Americans resort to? Is this not the government which was established after strong dissent towards the British crown? Even violent dissent? So why was this dissent acceptable then but not now?

When the guys from Popehat.com called the U.S. attorney that signed the subpoena sent to Reason Magazine, Mr. Velamoor responded with defensive and sometimes intimidating comments, claiming that there is a gag order on the subpoena, which is a statement that contradicts what the subpoena actually states, namely that it does NOT have a gag order associated with it.

Velamoor misspoke yet again when he claimed that the commenters did not commit a crime, however they need to be unmasked first in order to make a full determination.  In essence, these government lawyers are on a fishing trip aimed at punishing anonymous dissenters and sending a message to the rest of us: shut up, keep your voices down and stop complaining about unjust judicial decisions.

Perhaps Judge Katherine Forrest should be doxed, exposed or threatened by the general public if she made a horrific decision; after all she is a public servant who is seeking to not be accountable to the public and hiding behind a wall of subpoenas aimed at unmasking her anonymous critics.  She has made a career out of destroying to lives of peaceful Americans engaged in non-violent activities. Ross Ulbricht simply ran a commerce website and provided services which made the lives of everyone involved more peaceful and less violent. This judge has showed little desire for real justice in her courtroom throughout the trial by repeatedly blocking evidence beneficial to the defense and even ruling that emojis are admissible as evidence. At best she is just incompetent. At worst, she is corrupt and malicious.

It is for the American people to choose the path to a hopefully peaceful revolution and decide when they’ve had enough and when they can take back the reigns of power from their “public servants.” And perhaps it can be done without violence, executions of judges or war, but unlike their government, most American people are only calling out for action and are not acting on their statements yet. What will this judge and what will these government attorneys do when millions of people stop commenting online and instead go on the streets to take action? Will they subpoena us all?


Virgil Vaduva is a Libertarian security professional, journalist, photographer and overall liberty freak. He spent most of his life in Communist Romania and participated in the 1989 street protests which led to the collapse of the Ceausescu regime. He can be reached at vvaduva at truthvoice.com.

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Five Insane Things a DEA Agent Did While Stealing Bitcoin From Silk Road https://truthvoice.com/2015/06/five-insane-things-a-dea-agent-did-while-stealing-bitcoin-from-silk-road/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=five-insane-things-a-dea-agent-did-while-stealing-bitcoin-from-silk-road Tue, 02 Jun 2015 11:25:19 +0000 http://truthvoice.com/2015/06/five-insane-things-a-dea-agent-did-while-stealing-bitcoin-from-silk-road/

dea-police

Anyone who has been following the real-life criminal drama swirling around the online drug marketplace Silk Road had their mind blown this week when San Francisco prosecutors announced charges against two federal agents involved in the investigation. DEA agent Carl Mark Force IV and Secret Service agent Shawn Bridges were allegedly helping themselves to copious amounts of Bitcoin through theft, deception and fraud, using the inside information and technical access they had to Silk Road operations as federal investigators.

The complaint is an astonishing, and frankly amusing, tale of two bumbling agents who seemed to think that virtual currencies were confounding enough to the government that it would never figure out what they were up to. Force allegedly messed up in many ways, including signing his real name, “Carl,” to an unencrypted email from one of his monikers, “French Maid.” According to the government, Force blackmailed a suspect he was investigating, stole nearly a million dollars worth of bitcoin, and sold information about the investigation to Silk Road operator Dread Pirate Roberts for his own personal gain. That’s all pretty bad. But what is also shocking is the damage Force, a DEA agent of 15 years, tried to—and did—wreak on innocent companies and individuals who got in his way. It offers a disturbing glimpse into how much damage a rogue federal agent can do:

1. Force tried to shut down payments start-up Venmo (which Paypal later acquired).

According to the complaint, once Force started transferring Bitcoin from Silk Road and its founder into his accounts, he had to figure out how to turn it into cash, which involved opening accounts with many payment platforms, including virtual currency ones like Bitstamp and BTC-e, and normal ones all of us use, like Venmo. Last year, some of Force’s activity looked suspicious to Venmo, so the start-up froze his account. Force tried to get Venmo to unfreeze his account by “flashing his DEA badge” in an e-mail sent from his personal account. After they ignored it, Force sent them a fake subpoena from the DEA, again from his personal account. Venmo thought that all of this looked a wee bit suspicious, so they reported it to Force’s superiors at the DEA. Force then e-mailed Venmo, telling the company to ignore the fake subpoena he’d sent. At the same time, in March of 2014, Force emailed another agent saying that Venmo was a “suspicious money remitter” and that they should do a background check to see if the company was properly registered. According to the complaint:

screen-shot-2015-03-31-at-1-30-08-pm

“If not, I want to seize their bank accounts,” Force wrote, referring to what the agency had recently done to Bitcoin platform Mt. Gox. According to the government complaint, “Force appears to have been targeting Venmo for seizure after the company rebuffed his attempts to use a subpoena for a personal matter.”

Six months later, Braintree, which owns Venmo, was acquired by Paypal for $800 million. If Force’s scheme had worked, and the company had been subject to a federal investigation, who knows if that deal would have gone through?

2. Force implied to Mt Gox’s founder that he had helped the U.S. Department of Homeland Security take down the popular Bitcoin exchange.

In April of 2013, Force attempted to connect with Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles via LinkedIn, according to screenshots of e-mails Karpeles has posted online, in which Force tells Karpeles he is “exploring work opportunities.” A month later, in May of 2013, the feds seized the accounts of Mt. Gox, the then-leading Tokyo-based platform for Bitcoin traders. It was the first big blow to the now-defunct company. The Secret Service agent who provided the evidence to justify the Mt. Gox search warrant was Shawn Bridges, Force’s alleged conspirator. After the Mt. Gox seizure, Force e-mailed Karpeles saying, “Told you [you] should have partnered with me!” with a smiley face as a subject line. Even if that was simply braggadocio, it was certainly not an email a federal agent should be sending to the CEO of a company under investigation.

3ebqfiz

3. Force got a job at a Bitcoin start-up, then allegedly robbed a California man who was a customer of that start-up.

Force used his knowledge of Bitcoin to become a compliance officer for a Bitcoin trading platform called CoinMKT. A self-employed actor listed only as R.P. in the complaint had an account with CoinMKT that contained $37,000 in cash and nearly $300,000 in virtual currencies. One day, R.P. decided to withdraw $30,000 from his account in three $10,000 increments. The withdrawal was flagged by CoinMKT’s systems as needing review, because it looked like R.P. was trying to keep his withdrawals under reporting limits, so the CoinMKT folks alerted their compliance officer, Force.

screen-shot-2015-03-31-at-1-13-56-pm

In fact, there was a glitch in CoinMKT’s system which wouldn’t let users withdraw over $10,000 at a time, but Force already had already begun to rob R.P. According to the complaint, Force told his CoinMKT colleagues that R.P. had a “mental condition” and then instructed the company to freeze his account because the DEA was going to seize his assets. Ultimately, the virtual currency funds were transferred to Force’s personal Bitstamp account, and the cash went back to the DEA. In other words, R.P.—which might now stand for “Really Pissed”— got robbed of a quarter million dollars in illegally seized funds.

(R.P., if you read this, we hope you got your money back. Send us an email!)

4. Once Force knew he’d messed up, he tried to force a Bitcoin company to erase the evidence.

Bitstamp, a Slovenia-based Bitcoin exchange, flagged Force’s activity as suspicious several times, but each time, Force explained that he was a DEA agent and flashed his badge (via a scanned image). One thing that looked suspicious to Bitstamp was Force accessing their website using the identity-masking web browser Tor. “Don’t particularly want NSA looking over my shoulder 🙂,” he explained by email.

screen-shot-2015-03-31-at-1-33-45-pm

According to the complaint, Force allegedly sent many of his ill-gotten Bitcoin to his Bitstamp account. At the beginning of May, the same month Force was questioned by the San Francisco-based prosecutors, he “emailed Bitstamp request[ing] they delete all transaction history associated with his account,” according to the complaint. (The complaint doesn’t say whether Bitstamp complied.)

5. Force and Bridges used information from an interview of a Silk Road administrator to rob the site.

After identifying a Silk Road administrator, Force and Bridges interviewed him about the technical aspects of how the site worked. According to the complaint, the Silk Road employee basically gave the agents the digital keys to the kingdom. In one of the craziest allegations in the complaint, after the interview, the keys were used to rob Silk Road of a “sizable” amount of Bitcoin. It appears the stolen Bitcoin was transferred to accounts in control of Force and Bridges. (The offline equivalent would be if two DEA agents found out where a drug cartel was stashing its cash and stole it for themselves.)

screen-shot-2015-03-31-at-1-54-54-pm

None of this malfeasance wound up coming out during the trial of Ross Ulbricht, who was found guilty of running the Silk Road, because it was the conduct of the Maryland task force, rather than the New York task force, which was running its own investigation. Ulbricht’s lawyer Joshua Dratel says it’s “scandalous” that this couldn’t be introduced during his client’s trial.

Given the nature of Silk Road—an online drug marketplace that conducted its operations online and in virtual currency—Force’s trail of destruction was documented digitally along the way. E-mail records and Bitcoin’s blockchain played a significant role in his undoing. But not before he allegedly wound his way into the heart of the Bitcoin economy, and used his position to get in on the action.

This story written by Kashmir Hill and featured on Fusion

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Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison https://truthvoice.com/2015/05/ross-ulbricht-sentenced-to-life-in-prison/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ross-ulbricht-sentenced-to-life-in-prison Fri, 29 May 2015 08:45:28 +0000 http://truthvoice.com/2015/05/ross-ulbricht-sentenced-to-life-in-prison/

Ross Ulbricht

Ross Ulbricht conceived of his Silk Road black market as an online utopia beyond law enforcement’s reach. Now he’ll spend the rest of his life firmly in its grasp, locked inside a federal penitentiary.

On Friday Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for his role in creating and running Silk Road’s billion-dollar, anonymous black market for drugs. Judge Katherine Forrest gave Ulbricht the most severe sentence possible. The minimum he could have served was 20 years.

“The stated purpose [of the Silk Road] was to be beyond the law. In the world you created over time, democracy didn’t exist. You were captain of the ship, the Dread Pirate Roberts,” she told Ulbricht as she read the sentence. “Silk Road’s birth and presence asserted that its…creator was better than the laws of this country. This is deeply troubling, terribly misguided, and very dangerous.”

Ulbricht had stood before the court just minutes earlier in navy blue prison clothes, pleading for a lenient sentence. “I’ve changed. I’m not the man I was when I created Silk Road,” he said, as his voice grew husky with emotion and cracked. “I’m a little wiser, a little more mature, and much more humble.”

Ulbricht’s sentencing likely puts the final seal on the saga of Silk Road, the anarchic underground market the 31-year-old Texan created in early 2011. At its peak, the Dark Web site grew to a sprawling smorgasbord of every narcotic imaginable—before Ulbricht was arrested in a public library in San Francisco in October of 2013. Eighteen months later, he was convicted in a Manhattan court on seven felony charges, including conspiracies to traffic in narcotics and launder money, as well as a “kingpin” charge usually reserved for the leaders of organized crime groups.

Two of those seven charges were deemed redundant and dropped by the prosecution just days before the sentencing, though that technical change to the charges didn’t lessen Ulbricht’s mandatory minimum sentence—or his eventual punishment.

Ulbricht’s defense team has already said it will seek an appeal in his case. That call for a new trial will be based in part on recent revelations that two Secret Service and Drug Enforcement Administration agents involved in the investigation of the Silk Road allegedly stole millions of dollars of bitcoin from the site. One of the agents is even accused of blackmailing Ulbricht, and of allegedly selling him law enforcement information as a mole inside the DEA. But the judge in Ulbricht’s case ruled that those Baltimore-based agents weren’t involved in the New York FBI-led investigation that eventually took down the Silk Road, preventing their alleged corruption from affecting Ulbricht’s fate.

In the weeks leading up to his sentencing hearing, Ulbricht’s defense team attempted to lighten his punishment with arguments about his motives and character, as well as emphasizing the Silk Road’s positive effect on its drug-using customers. In more than a hundred letters, friends, family, and even fellow inmates pointed to Ulbricht’s idealism and lack of a criminal history. And the defense argued that Silk Road had actually reduced harm in the drug trade by ensuring the purity of the drugs sold on the site through reviews and ratings, hosting discussions on “safe” drug use, and giving both buyers and sellers an avenue to trade in narcotics while avoiding the violence of the streets. “Transactions on the Silk Road web site were significantly safer than traditional illegal drug purchases, and included quality control and accountability features that made purchasers substantially safer than they were when purchasing drugs in a conventional manner,” Ulbricht’s lead attorney Joshua Dratel wrote in a memo to Judge Forrest two weeks ago.

But the prosecution countered that any protection the Silk Road offered drug users was dwarfed by the increased access it offered to dangerous and addictive drugs. And it pointed to six individuals who it claimed had died of drug overdoses from drugs purchased on the Silk Road. “Praising Silk Road for including ‘harm reduction measures’ is akin to applauding a heroin dealer for handing out a clean needle with every dime bag,” the prosecution wrote in a letter to the judge.

The Justice Department also argued in their letter to Judge Forrest that Ulbricht should be made an example of to stop even more Dark Web market kingpins from following in his footsteps. After all, dozens of copycat sites and advancements on the Silk Road market model have sprouted in the years since its takedown, including the Silk Road 2, Evolution, and the currently largest Dark Web black market to survive law enforcement’s attacks, Agora. To combat the spread of those anonymous bazaars, prosecutors asked Judge Forrest to “send a clear message” with a sentence for Ulbricht well beyond the mandatory minimum.

“Although the Government has achieved some successes in combating these successor dark markets, they continue to pose investigative challenges for law enforcement,” read the prosecution’s letter. “To the extent that would-be imitators may view the risk of being caught to be low, many are still likely to be deterred if the stakes are sufficiently high.”

The defense’s arguments about Ulbricht’s character and his idealistic motives were also undercut by accusations that Ulbricht had paid for the murder of six people, including a potential informant and a blackmailer. Those accusations never became formal charges in Ulbricht’s case—five out of six of the murder-for-hires appear to have been part of a lucrative scam targeting Ulbricht, with no actual victims. But they deeply colored Ulbricht’s trial, and no doubt loomed large in the mind of Judge Forrest at sentencing.

In his own letter to the judge ahead of sentencing, Ulbricht took a more personal tact, promising that he had learned that the Silk Road was a “terrible mistake” and a “very naive and costly idea” that he regretted and wouldn’t repeat. He pleaded for a chance at freedom in the decades after his incarceration.

“I’ve had my youth, and I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age,” he wrote. “Please leave a small light at the end of the tunnel, an excuse to stay healthy, an excuse to dream of better days ahead, and a chance to redeem myself in the free world before I meet my maker.”

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BREAKING: Ross Ulbricht’s Mother Speaks Publicly About Trial https://truthvoice.com/2015/03/breaking-ross-ulbrichts-mother-speaks-publicly-about-trial/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=breaking-ross-ulbrichts-mother-speaks-publicly-about-trial Sat, 07 Mar 2015 11:18:26 +0000 http://truthvoice.com/2015/03/breaking-ross-ulbrichts-mother-speaks-publicly-about-trial/

Ross UlbrichtToday Ross Ulbrich’s mom, Lyn Ulbricht spoke publicly for the first time since the trial of her son.  Lyn was a featured speaker at The Liberty Forum, a yearly conference organized by The Free State Project in Manchester, NH.

Lyn reviewed the flow of the trial, pointed out how the FBI mislead the public, hid evidence from the jury and how defense witnesses were not allowed to be called during the trial.

The video was streamed live via Bambuser using a phone and it is archived below; quality is not top notch but the message is critical.  The heart-breaking story of a mother trying to save her son from a government bent on destroying him at any cost, including the cost of justice.

 

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