Ross William Ulbricht, the mastermind behind the billion-dollar online Silk Road website, has been indicted on charges related to drugs, money laundering and more.
Federal agents arrested 29-year old Ulbricht from San Francisco on October 1, 2013, after a criminal complaint was filed at the Manhattan federal court.
On Tuesday, February 4, Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced the indictment of Ulbricht at a Manhattan federal court in connection with the Silk Road website, which he operated and owned. Silk Road was a hidden website, which was designed to enable its users to buy and sell illegal drugs as well as other illegal goods and services anonymously by using bitcoins.
Federal officials shut down Silk Road, which served as a marketplace, in October 2013. The website conducted all transactions using the virtual currency bitcoin. Ulbricht also hired a small number of staff for administration of the website. The investigators of the case reveal that they have seized over $150 million worth of bitcoins.
Ulbricht has been indicted on four charges, including narcotics conspiracy, money laundering, continuing criminal enterprise and conspiracy to commit computer hacking.
The Justice Department say that more than 100,000 people used Silk Road to buy or sell illegal drugs, goods and services. The website is said to have around 13,000 drug listings.
"Silk Road emerged as the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet, serving as a sprawling black-market bazaar where unlawful goods and services, including illegal drugs of virtually all varieties, were bought and sold regularly by the site's users," per a statement released by the Justice Department. "While in operation, Silk Road was used by several thousand drug dealers and other unlawful vendors to distribute hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs and other unlawful goods and services to well over a hundred thousand buyers, and to launder hundreds of millions of dollars deriving from these unlawful transactions."
Law enforcement agents say that they made more than 100 undercover purchases of restricted substances from Silk Road vendors, which included heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and more. Prosecutors say that the vendors on Silk Road were scattered over 10 countries: the U.S., Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, the UK, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy and Austria.
Ulbricht is currently in custody and his attorney Joshua Dratel said that Ulbricht will plead not guilty. The Silk Road mastermind may now face a minimum of 30 years in prison and life imprisonment as the maximum sentence.
