Three more people are charged in connection with the operation of Silk Road, the online black market bazaar for drugs, hacker tools and other illicit goods.
The Justice Department said an indictment was unsealed in New York for the three, following the arrest of the alleged mastermind of Silk Road in October in San Francisco.
The charges followed the arrest in October of alleged Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who is known online as "Dread Pirate Roberts.
U.S. authorities shut Silk Road down at the time of Ulbricht's arrest, although last month a new marketplace carrying the same name and appearance debuted online.
The indictment said Jones, 24, and Davis, 25, acted as site administrators for Silk Road, while Nash, 40, was the primary moderator for the website's discussion forums.
The three face charges of money laundering, drug trafficking and conspiracy for their alleged roles as moderators of Silk Road.
Last month, a message appeared on the social media site Reddit claiming Silk Road had reopened weeks after it was shut down by the FBI. The message was signed "Dread Pirate Roberts."
The message said Silk Road had implemented "a complete security overhaul" to keep the marketplace out of the reach of authorities.
The site is accessible only through online encryption offered via a service known as Tor.
Authorities said that from about January 2011, Ulbricht ran a marketplace that hawked heroin, cocaine, LSD and methamphetamine, as well as hacker tools such as software for stealing passwords or logging keystrokes on people's machines.
Silk Road took in commissions ranging from eight to 15 percent of sales, raking in at least $80 million on more than $1.2 billion worth of transactions, the criminal complaint estimated.
The Justice Department said an indictment was unsealed in New York for the three, following the arrest of the alleged mastermind of Silk Road in October in San Francisco.
The charges followed the arrest in October of alleged Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who is known online as "Dread Pirate Roberts.
U.S. authorities shut Silk Road down at the time of Ulbricht's arrest, although last month a new marketplace carrying the same name and appearance debuted online.
The indictment said Jones, 24, and Davis, 25, acted as site administrators for Silk Road, while Nash, 40, was the primary moderator for the website's discussion forums.
The three face charges of money laundering, drug trafficking and conspiracy for their alleged roles as moderators of Silk Road.
Last month, a message appeared on the social media site Reddit claiming Silk Road had reopened weeks after it was shut down by the FBI. The message was signed "Dread Pirate Roberts."
The message said Silk Road had implemented "a complete security overhaul" to keep the marketplace out of the reach of authorities.
The site is accessible only through online encryption offered via a service known as Tor.
Authorities said that from about January 2011, Ulbricht ran a marketplace that hawked heroin, cocaine, LSD and methamphetamine, as well as hacker tools such as software for stealing passwords or logging keystrokes on people's machines.
Silk Road took in commissions ranging from eight to 15 percent of sales, raking in at least $80 million on more than $1.2 billion worth of transactions, the criminal complaint estimated.
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