Ross Ulbricht, sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for creating the darknet market Silk Road, is free.
Ulbricht is a freedom fighter to some, and a dangerous criminal to others. The former know Ulbricht as described in Forbes, “a principled libertarian and cypherpunk in the same vein as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto”.
Ulbricht had a theory: that violent drug cartels would have no chance sustaining themselves in a free market environment where the state did not control the use of substances, as non-violent operations would simply outperform the violent ones based on demand.
Most who believe the latter, however, often base their opinion on claims that Ulbricht allegedly attempted to hire a hitman on a former Silk Road administrator, who stood accused of embezzling bitcoin from the site. While Ulbricht’s supporters celebrate, critics are asking: why would an online community so vehemently defend an attempted murderer?
The controversies and outright corruption surrounding Ulbricht’s prosecution should therefore not be forgotten.
The Charges Against Ulbricht
On February 5th 2015, a jury in the Southern District of New York found Ulbricht guilty of exclusively non-violent crimes, including several charges of narcotics distribution, computer hacking, conspiracy to run a criminal enterprise, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The judge sentenced Ulbricht to two life sentences plus forty years without the possibility of parole – almost twice the sentence of the violent Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
The alleged murder for hire charges arose out of a different case, filed in May 2013 in Maryland. The indictment alleged that, based on chat logs obtained from the Silk Road site, Ulbricht attempted to murder Curtis Green for stealing bitcoin from the project.
As the chat logs read according to the indictment, Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR), the pseudonym attributed to Ulbricht, wrote to another Silk Road user, whom he believed to be a drug kingpin capable of ordering a hitman:
“I’d like to beat him up, [sic] then forced to send the bitcoins he stole back. [sic] like sit him down at his computer and make him do it.”
A day later, the indictment states, DPR allegedly changed his mind, writing: “Can you change the order to execute rather than torture?”
According to the indictment, DPR stated that Green “was on the inside for a while, and now that he’s been arrested, I’m afraid he’ll give up info,” allegedly adding that he had “never killed a man before, but this is the right move in this case.”
A few days later, $40,000 were wired into the hitman’s account, and DPR asked for “proof of death” via video or pictures to send the rest of the payment.
On February 21st 2013, the kingpin informed DPR that Green was dead – “they killed him this weekend,” he wrote, telling him that he had died of asphyxiation, and that the body was completely destroyed to eliminate evidence.
Except the kingpin wasn’t a kingpin. It was DEA Agent Carl Force who, as it would later turn out, liked to engage in a little criminal enterprise himself when granted the opportunity.
A Real Theft And A Fake Murder
During the course of the investigation, Green had been cooperating with law enforcement, giving DEA Agent Carl Force and Secret Service Agent Shaun Bridges access to the Silk Road site.
During one of law enforcement’s sessions on Silk Road, a series of “sizeable thefts” occurred on the site, which would later be traced back to Bridges, who plead guilty to stealing $350,000 in bitcoin at the time of the theft, or $800,000 at the time of his guilty plea.
The account in question, operated by Bridges and in consultation with Force, had received “no less than 20,000 bitcoin”, according to the complaint. Force, posing as the drug kingpin “Nob”, then orchestrated the fake hit and, together with Bridges, faked Green’s death.
Force went on to create the fake identity “Death from Above” to extort $250,000 from DPR, stating: “I know that you had something to do with [Green’s] disappearance and death. Just wanted to let you know that I’m coming for you. […] You are a dead man. Don’t think you can elude me.”
Bridges was sentenced to 24 months in prison to be served consecutively to a 71-month sentence he received for a similar crime in 2015, while Force was sentenced to 78 months in prison. Information on the corrupt agents was never made available to be used in Ulbricht’s defense.
Who Is Dread Pirate Roberts
Dread Pirate Roberts, the pseudonym attributed to Ulbricht, is taken from the 1973 novel “The Princess Bride” by William Goldman, depicting an identity that is assumed by multiple characters. The identity Dread Pirate Roberts, as written by Goldman, is shared between pirates to intimidate opponents, and passed on in secret.
In the course of the public proceedings of the case, evidence mounted that Silk Road’s DPR was not solely operated by Ulbricht. In a conversation with former friend Richard Bates, who helped Ulbricht set up the Silk Road site, Ulbricht responded with “glad that’s not my problem anymore” when made aware of news coverage concerning the site.
During the trial, prosecutors attempted to stop the defense from questioning another law enforcement officer, special agent Jared Der-Yeghiayan of the Department of Homeland Security, who believed that DPR was actually Mark Kapeles – the former Mt. Gox CEO, who was later convicted for falsifying Mt. Gox records and inflating the exchange’s supply by tens of millions.
Der-Yeghiayan had referred to an exclusive interview with DPR in Forbes, in which the pseudonymous Silk Road operator had stated that “he hadn’t actually created the Silk Road, but instead had befriended its creator and later acquired the site from him.”
According to Der-Yeghiayan, DPR’s writing sounded very much like that of his suspect, Mark Kapeles – and Der-Yeghiayan is not the only one alleging that DPR sounded like someone else. As former Dark Wallet developer Amir Taaki stated:
“Years ago, when I messaged the Silk Road, I had a conversation with the DPR – a very personal conversation where he was [talking] about how one day he hopes to be on the outside struggling for freedom together. You know, not having to hide his identity. One year [or] two years later when I messaged the guy — I’m pretty certain it was not the same guy. The tone was completely different. He had no recollection of the events that happened before, and his attitude to me was in stark contrast to the exuberant and wordy DPR of the early days.”
This argument was further backed by a pseudonymous Silk Road vendor, who stated that “there were ‘at least two other people—if not three’—who were administering Silk Road.” Der-Yeghiayan corroborates this belief in an email ten days before Ulbricht’s arrest, stating that “we contributed to the other two admins getting away.”
Silk Road employee Andrew Jones, who had established a ‘secret handshake’ with Ulbricht in 2012 to confirm his identity, did not believe that the late DPR was Ulbricht, either.
According to court documents, Jones would ask DPR for a book recommendation, to which the correct answer would be “anything by Rothbard” – an answer which DPR did not provide when asked a year later.
To add intellectual insult to operational injury, someone had logged in to DPR’s account six weeks after Ulbricht’s arrest, who was in federal custody at the time – which may have been the corrupt agents, who had administrative access to the site, or another DPR all together.
As stated by Green himself: “and to everybody that says ‘were there multiple DPRs’, absolutely there was – I was DPR once. So if I was, who else was?”
Regarding the murder-for-hire charges, Green stated that he did not believe Ulbricht would have ordered a hit on him. As Green stated in 2017:
“Ross Ulbricht got a raw deal. There is so much more on the Silk Road story than people know, and I can’t yet talk about it. I don’t believe Ross is dangerous or that it’s in his character to order a hit on anyone. He should never have gotten that horrible sentence.”
To cut to the chase: yes, Ross Ulbricht operated Silk Road. No, Ross Ulbricht was likely not the only person with access to the DPR account. Ross Ulbricht was never convicted of the murder-for-hire charges. The case was dismissed in 2018 with prejudice, meaning that it could never be filed again.
For all we know, we are all Dread Pirate Roberts.
