silk road underground market place sized by the fbi and cia

http://forum.goregrish.com/threads/silk-road-seized-by-feds-dread-pirate-roberts-arrested.29128/

1. FBI Shuts Down The ‘Silk Road' Black Market, Arrests Infamous Owner 'Dread Pirate Roberts'
   Posted: 10/02/2013 12:19 pm EDT | Updated: 10/02/2013 3:54 pm EDT
   
   
   Silk Road
   
   Federal authorities said Wednesday they had seized a website that was considered one of the most popular places on the Internet for buying drugs and other illicit goods and services.
   In a criminal complaint, the FBI said they had charged Ross William Ulbricht, also known as "Dread Pirate Roberts," with operating the site, "Silk Road," since January 2011.
   Authorities said the Silk Road provided an online platform for drug dealers around the world to anonymously sell narcotics -- including heroin, LSD and cocaine. The Silk Road was also a "sprawling black market bazaar" for buying and selling other illegal activities, including malicious software used for computer hacking, authorities said.
   The Silk Road has long been in the crosshairs of authorities. In 2011, Sen. Charles Schumer called the site "a certifiable one-stop shop for illegal drugs that represents the most brazen attempt to peddle drugs online that we have ever seen. It's more brazen than anything else by lightyears."
   Ulbricht also asked one of The Silk Road's users to execute a "murder-for-hire" scheme against another user of the site who was threatening to release the identity of thousands of visitors to the site, according to the complaint.
   Authorities have charged Ulbricht with narcotics trafficking, money laundering and computer hacking. The Silk Road website has now been replaced by a banner that says the site has been seized by the FBI, DEA, IRS Criminal Division and ICE Homeland Security Investigations, authorities said in their complaint.
   Ulbricht was recently the subject of a profile in Forbes, where he told a reporter that he disguises his identity and the identity of his website's visitors through Tor, an anonymizing software that encrypts traffic by routing it through computers around the world.
   “The highest levels of government are hunting me," he told Forbes' Andy Greenberg. "I can’t take any chances.” 
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2. FBI Seizes Deep Web Black Market Silk Road, Arrests Owner
   
   The feds have caught up to the Silk Road. The underground website long known for drug trafficking and other illegal activity was seized by the FBI who also arrested the owner on three criminal counts. New York State prosecutors charged Ross William Ulbricht with one count each of narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, according to a court filing.
   Update: Further examining of the court documents revealed that Ulbricht solicited for murder after a Silk Road user threatened to reveal user info. More Info Here.
   Silk Road has long existed in the corner of the Internet dubbed Deep Web and accessible only through the seemingly secure Tor Network. Launched in 2011, the site quickly gained notoriety for its shadowy marketplace of drugs and guns. Silk Road became the Amazon of illegal things. As of July 23, 2013, there were approximately 957,079 registered user accounts, and as the court docs note, this does not necessarily equal the number of actual users.
   Although obscured, Silk Road netted big money. The total revenue generated from launch until July 23, 2013, resulted in approximately 9,519,664 Bitcoins and 614,305 Bitcoins of commission for Silk Road itself, court documents reveal. That converts to roughly $1.2 billion in revenue and $79.8 million in commissions, at current Bitcoin prices.
   A Silk Road competitor, Atlantis, aimed to add a bit of whimsy and Web 2.0 marketing pizzazz to the same markets. It closed last month.
   As the court documents note, the owner of Silk Road, Ross William Ulbricht, intentionally and knowingly violated U.S. narcotics laws. The document, available here, reads:
   From in or about 2011, up to and including in or about September 2013, ROSS WILLIAM ULBRICHT, a/k/a “Dread Pirate Roberts,” a/k/a “DPR,” a/k/a “Silk Road,” the defendant, owned and operated an underground website, known as “Silk Road,” that provided a platform for drug dealers around the world to sell a wide variety of controlled substances via the Internet.
   But that’s just the start of Ulbricht’s troubles. He is also charged with hacking conspiracy and money laundering. The site is currently down, seized by the FBI. It should be interesting, however, to see how the government handles this hydra of an organization. The vast majority of interactions on the Silk Road are anonymous, performed using Bitcoin transfers between parties and set up in secure email exchanges.
   According to the court documents, law enforcement agents made over 100 individual undercover purchases through Silk Road, obtaining Schedule I and II drugs, including ecstasy, cocaine, heroin, LSD and others.
   Ulbricht was reportedly arrested yesterday, October 1, 2013, at the Glenn Park library in San Francisco.