FBI agents arrested Ross Ulbricht, the alleged creator of the Silk Road online black market for drugs, he’s finally been formally indicted.
Ulbricht is charged with not only engaging in a narcotics, hacking and money-laundering conspiracy, but a “continuing criminal enterprise,” a charge sometimes referred to as the “kingpin statute.”
The law applies to alleged criminal organizations with six or more members organized by a single leader. And it brings Ulbricht’s potential minimum prison sentence to 30 years when added to the 10-year minimum sentence associated with the narcotics conspiracy charge.
Prosecutors write that Ulbricht operated the Silk Road’s Bitcoin-based dark-web drug bazaar “in concert with at least five other persons with respect to whom Ulbricht occupied a position of organizer, a supervisor position, and a position of management, and from continuing series of violations Ulbricht obtained substantial income and resources.”
If the new charges against Ulbricht stick, however, they may provide more motivation for the 29-year old from Austin, Texas to plea bargain in exchange for information about others allegedly involved in the Silk Road’s business.
The Silk Road is takedown on October, meanwhile, a new Silk Road has launched since the takedown of the last one, and current lists more than 12,000 products including drugs and other contraband.
The site’s administrator Dread Pirate Roberts is disappeared from the site’s forums after the arrest of two of its forum moderators in December, and handed over control to another of the site’s creators, who calls himself “Defcon.”
Ulbricht is charged with not only engaging in a narcotics, hacking and money-laundering conspiracy, but a “continuing criminal enterprise,” a charge sometimes referred to as the “kingpin statute.”
The law applies to alleged criminal organizations with six or more members organized by a single leader. And it brings Ulbricht’s potential minimum prison sentence to 30 years when added to the 10-year minimum sentence associated with the narcotics conspiracy charge.
Prosecutors write that Ulbricht operated the Silk Road’s Bitcoin-based dark-web drug bazaar “in concert with at least five other persons with respect to whom Ulbricht occupied a position of organizer, a supervisor position, and a position of management, and from continuing series of violations Ulbricht obtained substantial income and resources.”If the new charges against Ulbricht stick, however, they may provide more motivation for the 29-year old from Austin, Texas to plea bargain in exchange for information about others allegedly involved in the Silk Road’s business.
The Silk Road is takedown on October, meanwhile, a new Silk Road has launched since the takedown of the last one, and current lists more than 12,000 products including drugs and other contraband.
The site’s administrator Dread Pirate Roberts is disappeared from the site’s forums after the arrest of two of its forum moderators in December, and handed over control to another of the site’s creators, who calls himself “Defcon.”
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