After a trial of several weeks, a federal jury has found Ross Ulbricht guilty of running and operating the online black market known as Silk Road. He was found guilty on all seven charges, which include money laundering, narcotics trafficking and computer hacking. Ulbricht was accused of being the "Dread Pirate Roberts," the so-called kingpin of Silk Road, which he apparently started back in 2010 in order to sell hallucinogenic mushrooms. It then grew into a digital marketplace for narcotics which was cloaked in the Tor anonymity network to hide it from view. Silk Road also used BitCoin as its mode of currency because it's difficult to track.
The case against Ulbricht was seemingly overwhelming. When arrested, his laptop was seized, and showed him logged into Silk Road under his pseudonym. Law enforcement was also able to track chat logs, forum posts, messages and emails that all point to the Dread Pirate Roberts dealing in drugs and, yes, even plotting the assassination of would-be blackmailers.
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[Image credit: Getty Images]
Filed under: Misc
Source: Wall Street Journal
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