A man in San Francisco was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly operating the underground Silk Road 2.0 website, which is almost identical to the original Silk Road marketplace that was closed by the authorities in October last year.
The man who was arrested was Blake Benthall, who went by his online alias of "Defcon." Benthall was charged with a criminal complaint for the operation of Silk Road 2.0, which prosecutors said allowed over 100,000 people to participate in buying and selling of illegal drugs.
Silk Road 2.0 was allegedly created after the government seized the original Silk Road and arrested Ross Ulbricht, the website's administrator.
"Let's be clear-this Silk Road, in whatever form, is the road to prison. Those looking to follow in the footsteps of alleged cybercriminals should understand that we will return as many times as necessary to shut down noxious online criminal bazaars. We don't get tired," said Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in a statement released by the FBI.
Since Silk Road 2.0's launch in November last year as a successor to the original Silk Road, the website has been utilized by thousands of sellers of drugs and other illicit items. The website has also been used in money laundering for millions of dollars that were generated through the transactions.
In addition to drugs, other illicit goods sold through Silk Road 2.0 include fabricated identification and services by hackers. Agents by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration were able to buy cocaine, heroin, oxycodone pills and acid through the website.
According to the complaint against Silk Road 2.0, the website had around 150,000 active users and was generating around $8 million in sales monthly as of the month of September.
Upon the launch of Silk Road 2.0, the website was controlled by an anonymous co-conspirator that was using the name Dread Pirate Roberts, which was the alias previously used by Ulbricht. Benthall acted as the second-in-command.
However, after the authorities arrested three administrators of the original Silk Road, the co-conspirator ceded control of Silk Road 2.0 to Benthall.
Benthall, a noted enthusiast for the bitcoin virtual currency, was able to purchase a Tesla Model S car using bitcoins only a month after he took over operations for Silk Road 2.0.
Both Silk Road and Silk Road 2.0 use the Tor network, which is designed to hide the IP addresses and identities of its users.
Like its predecessor, Silk Road 2.0 charged a fee for every transaction generated through the website.
