Following the October 2013 FBI shutdown of the deep web marketplace The Silk Road, the first week of a trial against the network’s mastermind Dread Pirate Roberts – allegedly the 30-year-old Ross William Ulbricht – is coming to a close, with the state’s case against Ulbricht continuing to tighten.
After over a year of relative silence, the plot thickens.
The trial began with the prosecution claiming that Ross William Ulbricht is, in fact, Dread Pirate Roberts – founder and key player in The Silk Road – infamous for its untraceable drug marketplace, its ubiquitous use of bitcoin, and its inherent murkiness and penchant for anonymity that has allegedly provided the infrastructure for organised crime. According to TechCrunch, Ulbricht was labelled by the prosecution as “the kingpin of a digital criminal empire.”
Ulbricht is being charged for hacking, narcotics trafficking and money laundering at the trial that it currently underway in New York. Wired has reported that Robert Faiella is one of the first Silk Road members to be sentenced to prison, as Faiella has been charged for supplying $1 million in bitcoin to the Silk Road, through his bitcoin exchange. Faiella has been sentenced to 4 years in prison.
Ulbricht’s defence began with a ballsy move by admitting that Ulbricht was the original creator of the Silk Road. The angle of Ulbricht’s defence, however, claims that Ulbricht bailed from The Silk Road before things got sticky – that he found things “too stressful”, according to TechCrunch, and that he passed his role on to others before the marketplace’s notoriety and criminal activity peaked.
Business Insider reports that the prosecution’s hopeful nail in Ulbricht’s trial’s coffin came via personal journal entries and computer logs confiscated from Ulbricht. “The biggest con to this job is having to keep your work a secret,” Ulbricht allegedly wrote to another Silk Road employee.
Naturally, the case for Ulbricht is not looking particularly amazing.
“Silk Road is going to become a phenomenon and at least one person will tell me about it, unknowing that I was its creator,” The Guardian quotes as one of Ulbricht’s 2010 journal entries.
Ulbricht has pled not guilty to his charges.
More on the dramatic Silk Road trial as it continues next week.
Lead image by Spencer Platt via Getty.
