0:00

Hey listeners, amongst Donald Trump's flurry

0:02

of executive orders and presidential pardons

0:05

over the past week, you may

0:07

have noticed the full pardon and

0:09

release of dark web drug kingpin

0:11

Ross Ulbrick, aka the Dread Pirate

0:14

Roberts. In May 2015, Ulbrick was

0:16

sentenced to two life sentences, plus

0:18

40 years for conspiracy to commit

0:21

money laundering, conspiracy to commit computer

0:23

hacking, narcotics conspiracy to commit computer

0:25

hacking, narcotics conspiracy and continuing criminal

0:27

enterprise. As the creator and operator

0:30

of the Silk Road, Ulbrick facilitated

0:32

a dark web marketplace that operated

0:34

between 2011 and 2013, during which

0:36

time it hosted the sale of

0:39

hundreds of millions of dollars worth

0:41

of drugs. This made Ulbrick as

0:43

the anonymous dread pirate Robert a

0:45

multi-millionaire, and a shining figurehead for

0:48

libertarian drug users around the globe.

0:50

But that is not the full

0:52

story. While for some, the Silk

0:55

Road became a safe haven for

0:57

drug experimentation, It also played host

0:59

to a more seedy clientele as

1:01

well. Also being sold through the

1:04

site were fake IDs, stolen credit

1:06

cards, and allegedly even firearms. By

1:08

the time Ulbrick had been arrested,

1:10

he'd been accused of hiring several

1:13

hitmen, getting involved in serious gang

1:15

violence, and the distribution of child

1:17

sex abuse images. Yet, at the

1:19

Libertarian National Convention, Donald Trump promised

1:22

that he would pardon Ulbrick if

1:24

he was reelected. And as of

1:26

a week ago, Albrick is a

1:29

free man. So to understand why

1:31

libertarians would want Albrick released, you'll

1:33

need to know all about the

1:35

murky, murky depths of the dark

1:38

web. Something we dove into headfirst

1:40

in our episode from way way

1:42

back in March 2023, all about

1:44

drugs, data, and the Dread Pirate

1:47

Roberts. So here it is, from

1:49

the vault. Enjoy! I'm

1:59

30. I'm Hannah and welcome

2:01

to Red Handed. Digital edition.

2:04

Digital. Red Handed goes digital.

2:06

Yeah, we've been analog this

2:09

all time. Yeah, it's a very techie

2:11

one. Yeah, I've actually wanted to

2:13

do it for ages. Yeah, because

2:15

I watched a documentary about it

2:17

years ago and I meant to

2:19

rewatch it last night, but I

2:21

didn't. I watched 90-day fiancé instead.

2:23

Yeah, because I forgot. I watched

2:26

Maths Australia. Oh, the new one.

2:28

But that's okay, because I think

2:30

I watched that documentary about six

2:32

times. Yeah, we got it, we

2:34

got it, and we're going to

2:36

do it now. So pay attention.

2:38

Digitally. On the 1st of

2:40

June 2011, Adrian Chen, a writer for

2:43

Gorka, published an article titled,

2:45

The Underground website, where you

2:47

can buy any drug imaginable.

2:49

The article was, of course, referring

2:51

to the Silk Road. And as the

2:53

title suggested, it was indeed a

2:56

website. hidden on the dark web

2:58

where you could buy pretty much

3:00

any drug you wanted anonymously. This

3:02

article caused a media firestorm.

3:04

The concept of an online drug

3:06

bizarre was enough to catch the eye

3:09

of almost every publication on the

3:11

planet. And for the likes of

3:13

Fox News, it was confirmation that the

3:15

world had fully gone to the dogs. As

3:17

things often do when Fox News

3:20

get involved, Silk Road quickly became

3:22

a political issue. However, it

3:24

would take the DEA. Homeland Security

3:26

and the FBI two years to

3:29

shut down the anonymous online drug

3:31

market. The high-profile court case that

3:33

followed, for some, was a victory. For

3:35

others, it was a miscarriage of

3:37

justice that set an alarming

3:39

precedent for people's right to

3:41

privacy. But before we get to all

3:44

that, we need to talk about what

3:46

the Silk Road actually was, how it

3:48

worked, and why it was so god

3:50

damn successful. Apart from the fact that

3:52

people loved drugs. If we've learned

3:54

one thing on this show, it is

3:56

that humans are flawed and they love

3:58

drugs. The first ad for

4:01

The Silk Road appeared on Darknet

4:03

forums early on in 2011. It

4:05

was hardly a high-budget production. The

4:07

advert looked like it had been

4:09

made on Windows Movie Maker and

4:11

was basically just some luminous green

4:13

text wobbling around the screen, followed

4:15

by some stock images of cannabis,

4:17

cocaine and ecstasy. Before cutting to

4:19

an end card, which said, pay

4:21

only, using Bitcoin. While that ad

4:24

wasn't Super Bowl half-time quality, the

4:26

intent was clear. come to the

4:28

darknet, buy drugs, and do it

4:30

with the cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. And you

4:32

already know what the darknet is

4:34

because you wouldn't be seeing this

4:36

if you weren't on it. And

4:38

it was this combination of Bitcoin

4:40

and the darknet that sets Silk

4:42

Road apart and made it such

4:44

a success. Online drug marketplaces had

4:46

existed for years, but they all

4:48

posed a significant risk for the

4:50

user. Some of them existed on

4:53

the regular internet, also known of

4:55

course as the clearnet. These narcotic

4:57

emporiums were available via a simple

4:59

Google search. However, that simple search

5:01

exposed your illegal activities to your

5:03

internet provider, who could easily knock

5:05

on you. So the risk of

5:07

being caught was pretty high. The

5:09

same went for the payment method.

5:11

Regardless of how careful you were

5:13

on these sites, you eventually had

5:15

to pay for your drugs. And

5:17

that meant sending proper money somewhere,

5:19

whether it was via bank transfer

5:22

or a cash-filled envelope. This could

5:24

be traced back to you. But

5:26

then came, Silk Road. Hidden from

5:28

internet providers via the Darknet, and

5:30

hidden from the tax inspectors via

5:32

Bitcoin. All right, we cannot escape

5:34

the fact that we've said the

5:36

word darknet three times already, and

5:38

we haven't actually explained what it

5:40

is. We've also said clearnet once,

5:42

and a couple of other bits

5:44

of jargon for good measure. Give

5:46

me World War I any fucking

5:48

day of the week. This stuff

5:50

turns my brain inside out. But

5:53

I do understand it now, I

5:55

think. Let's have a little quick

5:57

breakdown of a few terms that

5:59

are going to be coming up.

6:01

quite a lot this week. Firstly,

6:03

clear net. When we say clear

6:05

net, what we mean is surface

6:07

web. Anything available via a Google

6:09

search. So like the front page

6:11

of YouTube, Facebook, BBC News, Amazon,

6:13

blah blah blah. They all exist

6:15

on the clear net. Easy PC.

6:17

Then there is the deep web,

6:19

which sounds spooky, but we actually

6:22

use it all the time. The

6:24

deep web is anything on the

6:26

internet that you can't find through

6:28

a web browser like Google. Anything

6:30

hidden behind a paywall, or even

6:32

a login a login page. So

6:34

our Patreon page, for example, patreon.com

6:36

for a slash red-handed, exists on

6:38

the deep web. And so does

6:40

anything you store on your Google

6:42

Drive or even the little admin

6:44

pages you get when you're trying

6:46

to change your YouTube username from

6:48

like sexy Bunny 44. Yeah, and

6:51

like if you work at a

6:53

business where you use the internet

6:55

to talk to other people within

6:57

your own network, that is the

6:59

deep web. So yeah, anything that

7:01

isn't available via a simple Google

7:03

search yet is on the deep

7:05

web. Next, we need to have

7:07

a very quick chat about Bitcoin.

7:09

Now we are not experts in

7:11

this, so please don't come, well

7:13

actually in us, we're doing our

7:15

fucking best. Bitcoin is a data-based

7:17

currency that relies on lines of

7:20

cryptography to create unique tokens which

7:22

can be exchanged for goods and

7:24

services or for other mainstream currencies.

7:26

As we've said before, Bitcoin is

7:28

not untraceable. In fact, it's quite

7:30

the opposite. In order to make

7:32

sure there are no duplicate tokens.

7:34

Every single Bitcoin has to be

7:36

accounted for. However, it can be

7:38

bought and sold anonymously and held

7:40

in an anonymous online wallet that

7:42

isn't connected to a real-world identity.

7:44

So if this wallet is accessed

7:46

carefully, it's very difficult to pin

7:49

onto a real-world person directly. So

7:51

Bitcoin is the perfect currency for

7:53

buying and selling illegal goods online.

7:55

Then comes the DarkNet. The darknet

7:57

is a bit more spooky and

7:59

a bit more complicated. Websites on

8:01

the darknet are... only available through

8:03

a web browser called Tor. So

8:05

you can't use fucking Mozilla Firefox

8:07

or, you know, if you're still

8:09

using Internet Explorer for some reason.

8:11

You can't use any of that.

8:13

You have to download and use

8:15

Tor. And Tor stands for the

8:18

Onion Rooter. And it's a way

8:20

of anonymously browsing the internet. The

8:22

code that makes Tor work was

8:24

actually developed by the US Navy

8:26

for anonymous communication via the internet.

8:28

However, it has now become publicly

8:30

available. and is run by a

8:32

network of volunteers around the world.

8:34

But the user, Tor, doesn't look

8:36

particularly different from Google Chrome or

8:38

Firefox. It's just a web browser.

8:40

However, if you use it correctly,

8:42

Tor is completely anonymous. And it

8:44

manages that in quite a complicated

8:47

way. What it does is Tor

8:49

packages up all of your data,

8:51

scrambles it before it's sent to

8:53

whichever website you want to browse.

8:55

And it doesn't even send you

8:57

to the website you want directly.

8:59

So your information is scrambled up

9:01

and then bounced all over the

9:03

globe to a bunch of different

9:05

servers, making it absolutely impossible to

9:07

know where that data came from.

9:09

You can view regular websites on

9:11

tour just like any other browser,

9:13

but it also allows you to

9:16

access the dot-union websites. And those

9:18

websites, which end the domain name

9:20

with dot-union, are only available through

9:22

tour and are completely anonymous to

9:24

both the user and the host.

9:26

Neither the user or the host

9:28

of the website is able to

9:30

see where their communication is coming

9:32

or going from. Even if they

9:34

wanted to, you can't do it.

9:36

It's impossible. That is what the

9:38

Darknet is. So the Silk Road

9:40

certainly wasn't the first drug marketplace

9:42

to appear on the Darknet, but

9:45

its scale and professionalism were leagues

9:47

above anything that had ever come

9:49

before. It looked more like Amazon

9:51

or eBay than some sort of

9:53

like sketchy drug site. Everything that

9:55

went on was overseen by an

9:57

anonymous administrator, who checked on user

9:59

safety and made sure that Silk

10:01

Road ran. smoothly. This administrator also

10:03

made sure that every seller on

10:05

the site stuck to Silk Road's

10:07

core values, which in the words

10:09

of the administrator, were to avoid

10:11

selling things which were designed to,

10:14

quote, harm or defraud. Contrary to

10:16

popular belief, the site never offered

10:18

stolen goods, stolen credit cards or

10:20

child sex abuse images. So unlike

10:22

other drug websites, buying your next

10:24

block of hash didn't mean rubbing

10:26

shoulders with career criminals or outright

10:28

pedophiles. The administrator of the Silk

10:30

Road also implemented a review system

10:32

similar to the one on Amazon

10:34

or eBay or whatever. So that

10:36

meant sellers were held accountable for

10:38

their products. Anyone found to be

10:40

selling low-grade drugs or scamming users

10:43

were given poor reviews and sometimes

10:45

taken off the marketplace altogether. They

10:47

really did step things up. Yeah,

10:49

big-time man. Yeah. What this review

10:51

system meant is that the users

10:53

of Silk Road got their gear

10:55

from reputable sources. They knew it

10:57

would be pure and they knew

10:59

exactly where it came from. In

11:01

short, the users felt safer and

11:03

safety itself became a central value

11:05

of Silk Road. Not only did

11:07

people feel protected from prosecution by

11:09

authorities, they felt that the anonymous

11:12

administrator of the site was really

11:14

looking out for their best interests.

11:16

For the first few months, Silk

11:18

Road maintained a small but committed

11:20

group of core users, buying regularly

11:22

from the site. However, when the

11:24

Gorka article was released in June

11:26

2011, traffic on the site skyrocketed.

11:28

Suddenly, thousands of sales were being

11:30

made through the site every day,

11:32

and hundreds of thousands of dollars'

11:34

worth of Bitcoin were being transferred

11:36

around the globe. Naturally, the article

11:38

also got the attention of the

11:41

authorities and politicians. Just four days

11:43

after the article was published, New

11:45

York Senator Chuck Schumer made a

11:47

highly publicised announcement, fowing... The Silk

11:49

Road would be taken down. And

11:51

he was right. Little to the

11:53

users of Silk Road. But by

11:55

November 2011, DEA agents had started

11:57

to infiltrate the site, posing as

11:59

both buyers and sellers. As the

12:01

site grew, its mysterious owner began

12:03

to employ trusted members of the

12:05

community. They did all the boring

12:07

admin shit that comes with running

12:10

a business that no one wants

12:12

to do, like dealing with customer

12:14

complaints, shipping issues, refunds, stuff like

12:16

that. And the new system was

12:18

almost corporate in its efficiency and

12:20

ease of use. And while the

12:22

customer base expanded, so did the

12:24

community with it. There were message

12:26

boards where people chatted politics, traded

12:28

coding tips and maintained online friendships.

12:30

Then, on the 5th of February

12:32

2012, the site's owner and administrator

12:34

posted an update on the Silk

12:36

Road's progress. Within its first year,

12:39

the website had facilitated hundreds of

12:41

thousands of individual sales and had

12:43

hosted transactions totaling to about $15

12:45

million. And that's big news for

12:47

the Silk Road and its uses,

12:49

a $15 million economy. that was

12:51

hidden from the eyes of the

12:53

state was a huge part of

12:55

their libertarian dream. However, the administrator

12:57

was there to give more than

12:59

just a sales report. They announced

13:01

that they would be changing their

13:03

name and this small change had

13:05

enormous consequences on the Silk Road.

13:08

The admin explained that they needed

13:10

to step out of the shadows

13:12

and take on a moniker that

13:14

people could recognise and rally behind

13:16

as the figurehead of Silk Road.

13:18

The moniker they chose. was Dread

13:20

Pirate Roberts. Lifted straight from the

13:22

pages of The Princess Bride. Please

13:24

tell me that you have read

13:26

The Princess Bride. I have read

13:28

The Princess Bride. Okay, cute. Have

13:30

you seen the film? I don't

13:32

think I've seen the film. That's

13:34

okay. Yeah, I don't think I've

13:37

seen the film. Okay, well, do

13:39

you understand the concept of Dread

13:41

Pirate Roberts? That's amazing. Yes, I

13:43

do. And so yes, lifted straight

13:45

from the pages of the Princess

13:47

Bride, it was of course her

13:49

fake name and title, her fake

13:51

name and title, handed down, handed

13:53

down, from one masked hero, to

13:55

the next. The Silk Road's administrator

13:57

was making a bold statement, that

13:59

they would not be the first

14:01

or the last person. to lead

14:03

this anonymous online community. And that

14:05

was really starting to piss people

14:08

off. From this moment on, the

14:10

Dread Pirate Roberts took on a

14:12

much more public persona. They went

14:14

from settling user disputes, handing out

14:16

refunds and dealing with delays in

14:18

shipping, to becoming kind of a

14:20

political leader. Dread Pirate Roberts began

14:22

posting long essays and manifestos on

14:24

the Silk Road all about their

14:26

libertarian ideals and their belief in

14:28

the Silk Road as a force

14:30

for good. Like all card-carrying libertarians,

14:32

Dread Pirate Roberts believed that drugs

14:34

were a personal choice, and that

14:37

the government had no right to

14:39

dictate what people ingested or injected

14:41

into their eyeballs or whatever. The

14:43

Dread Pirate Roberts also waxed lyrical

14:45

about how The Silk Road was

14:47

actually lowering the risk of violence

14:49

for drug users. They no longer

14:51

needed to meet a shady dealer

14:53

in a back alley or a

14:55

car park. They could conduct their

14:57

business with anonymity and entirely online.

14:59

Dread Pirate Roberts even started their

15:01

own book club. to discuss libertarian

15:03

literature and delve deeper into economic

15:06

theory. Sounds fun. But the important

15:08

thing is, these libertarian beliefs united

15:10

the users of Silk Road, from

15:12

occasional pot smokers to functional heroin

15:14

uses. Everyone wanted the freedom to

15:16

use drugs safely and anonymously, and

15:18

of course, when you're not going

15:20

to get arrested. And this shift

15:22

from anonymous arbitrator to political leader

15:24

is very important. Remember it. So

15:26

as time went by and sailed

15:28

sword, the Dread Pirate Roberts was

15:30

becoming an internet celebrity. He even

15:32

sat down for a virtual interview

15:35

with Forbes, called Meet the Dread

15:37

Pirate Roberts, the man behind booming

15:39

black market drug website Silk Road.

15:41

In this interview, he discussed the

15:43

competitors to Silk Road that had

15:45

sprung up over the last year

15:47

and went into more detail about

15:49

his libertarian beliefs. And here's what

15:51

he said. We can't stay silent

15:53

forever. We have an important message

15:55

and the time is bright for

15:57

the world to hear it. What

15:59

we're doing isn't about scoring drugs

16:01

or sticking it to the man.

16:04

It's about standing up for our

16:06

rights as human beings and refusing

16:08

to submit when we've done no

16:10

wrong. It is kind of about

16:12

sticking it to the man. Come

16:14

on. Yeah, I mean, this is

16:16

the thing. I would say increasingly

16:18

I am being drawn more and

16:20

more towards a libertarian light. Yes.

16:22

You of the world. I think

16:24

there are libertarian... themes to your

16:26

personal philosophy, but I wouldn't say

16:28

it's overarching. No, let's go with

16:30

L. Libertarian light, Diet Libertarian, Coke-free,

16:33

I am a Coke-free libertarian. Coke's

16:35

not the drug for me. But

16:37

yeah, so I can empathize what

16:39

he's saying, but I do think

16:41

he has the idea that it's

16:43

not about sticking it to the

16:45

man. I would disagree with it.

16:47

Yes, yeah. But I understand. I

16:49

understand what he's saying. He

16:51

also told Forbes that he wasn't

16:54

the first Dread Pirate Roberts, rather

16:56

that he was an early user

16:58

of the site who would help

17:00

the original creator patch up some

17:02

vulnerabilities. He was then taken in

17:05

as one of the trusted employees,

17:07

and then he actually purchased the

17:09

site, taking on the moniker of

17:11

Dread Pirate Roberts. If you haven't

17:13

read the Princess Bride, calling himself

17:16

Dread Pirate Roberts is like saying

17:18

I am Sparticus. Like it immediately

17:20

displays that there is more than

17:22

one. Now. If an online drug

17:24

lord flaunting their anti-establishment ideals in

17:27

the press wasn't enough to light

17:29

a fire under the ongoing government

17:31

investigations, then what the Dread Pirate

17:33

Roberts said next was sure to

17:35

get them red in the face.

17:38

When asked roughly how much he

17:40

was making, personally speaking, from Silk

17:42

Road Pirate Roberts was suddenly pretty

17:44

cagey. But he did eventually divulge

17:46

the following. At some point... you're

17:49

going to have to put Dread

17:51

Pirate Roberts on that list you

17:53

keep over at Forbes. Obviously talking

17:55

about the Forbes Rich List. Not

17:57

only was the Dread Pirate Roberts

18:00

a drug dealer and a revolutionary,

18:02

he was now flaunting that he'd

18:04

becoming... wealthy in the process. And

18:06

that is always how they get

18:08

you. Yes, I mean I feel

18:11

like it's obvious that he's making

18:13

money because the website is fucking

18:15

making bank. But don't say it,

18:17

that's how they get you. Just

18:19

don't give an interview to Forbes

18:22

man. Like this really is a

18:24

big mistake. This is a big

18:26

mistake. Although the exact personal wealth

18:28

of the Dread Pirate Roberts remained

18:30

a mystery, Conservative estimates suggested that

18:33

by August 2012. Silk Road had

18:35

facilitated around 22 million dollars in

18:37

sales and Silk Road took a

18:39

10% commission. Boom. Leave it in.

18:41

I forgot to meet my laptop,

18:44

but that was perfect timing. Not

18:46

the right sound, but perfect timing.

18:48

But yeah, fucking boom. That is

18:50

money all the way to the

18:52

drug bank. How many monies? Well,

18:55

22 million dollars and they're taking

18:57

10%. The 10% of commission would

18:59

probably not be on sales, but

19:01

on... Well, I guess it would

19:03

be on the sales because it's

19:05

what's being generated through the website.

19:08

So yeah, it would be 2.2

19:10

million dollars that they would have

19:12

been taking every single year if

19:14

that's how much they're selling. Thank

19:16

you for the math. I can't

19:19

do it. So what that math

19:21

tells us is that Dread Pirate

19:23

Roberts was making an income of

19:25

several million dollars just from sales.

19:27

And when you take that into

19:30

account, his ownership of the Silk

19:32

Road site and the steady increase

19:34

in the value of Bitcoin, Dread

19:36

Pirate Roberts. personal wealth could easily

19:38

have been in the tens of

19:41

millions. However, you won't be surprised

19:43

to hear that this increased wealth

19:45

and success brought an increase in

19:47

unwanted attention because the higher you

19:49

fly the more people hate you

19:52

for it. By mid 2011, the

19:54

DEA, the FBI and Homeland Security

19:56

all had task forces dedicated to

19:58

hunting down the Dread Pirate Roberts

20:00

and shutting down. the Silk Road.

20:03

But as hard as these government

20:05

agencies work to infiltrate Silk Road

20:07

as buyers and sellers, none of

20:09

them had any luck getting close

20:11

to the Dread Pirate Roberts. He

20:14

stuck to his very tight circle

20:16

of trusted friends and never ever

20:18

gave his personal information to anybody

20:20

because he's not a fucking idiot.

20:22

That all changed when a package

20:25

was intercepted from a dealer and

20:27

admin of the Silk Road in

20:29

Australia. The identity of this dealer

20:31

has never been revealed, although they

20:33

did speak anonymously on the documentary

20:36

darkwep. This dealer was not arrested

20:38

or charged for their crimes and

20:40

was instead offered the chance to

20:42

be a cooperating witness. Sneaky Australia!

20:44

Fuckin' Ark! That's what it is.

20:47

Their user account and identity was

20:49

taken over by DEA agent Karl

20:51

Force. Kolk Force! Meganark! Who began

20:53

to communicate directly with the Dread

20:55

Pirate Roberts. Carforce insinuated that he

20:58

was unable to sell shipments big

21:00

enough through the Silk Road to

21:02

fulfil his needs as a dealer.

21:04

Dread Pirate Roberts naturally was concerned

21:06

about losing an incredibly lucrative customer.

21:09

So he put Carforce in contact

21:11

with one of his most trusted

21:13

employees. A user who went by

21:15

the name Chronic Pain. Chronic Pain

21:17

was a long-standing admin of Silk

21:20

Road. and could facilitate large international

21:22

drug shipments through the website. And

21:24

over time, force and chronic pain

21:26

built up a relationship, until eventually,

21:28

chronic pain felt safe enough to

21:31

give force their home address. No.

21:33

To facilitate one of these large

21:35

drug shipments. No. And this was

21:37

a landslide moment for the DEA.

21:39

It is funny, isn't how you're

21:42

kind of rooting for... I was

21:44

going to say this, because like...

21:46

It's very similar in terms of

21:48

the investigation, right, when you listen

21:50

to something like hunting. Exactly, yeah.

21:52

They're trying to infiltrate this website

21:55

in Hunting Warhead. It's of course

21:57

Child's Play, which was the largest

21:59

like online child abuse website. And

22:01

they need to get a reputable

22:03

person that they can sort of

22:06

use to infiltrate the site. And

22:08

here they're obviously doing it with

22:10

drugs. And there you're like, yeah,

22:12

fucking get them, team Artemis. Yeah,

22:14

and here you're like, oh, drugs.

22:17

But no, like obviously we understand

22:19

like. Drugs were in people's lives.

22:21

We're not saying that doesn't happen.

22:23

And we're not saying no, of

22:25

course, we're not like he'd advocate

22:28

everybody just getting on drugs. But

22:30

yeah, for some reason, maybe again,

22:32

it is my LL showing. I'm

22:34

like, I would say I'm less

22:36

libertarian than you are, but I'm

22:39

rooting for them. Yeah. Interesting, interesting

22:41

feelings to dissect on red-handed this

22:43

afternoon. So, chronic pain's home address,

22:45

home address was raided by the

22:47

DEA. So an army of Hanks

22:50

raid this house. And this house

22:52

belonged to a middle-aged family man

22:54

in Salt Lake City called Curtis

22:56

Green. Green's arrest quickly became public

22:58

knowledge and the Dread Pirate Roberts

23:01

began telling Karl Force that he

23:03

was pretty sure that Green would

23:05

cooperate with the DEA. In January

23:07

2013, the Dread Pirate Roberts offered

23:09

Karl Force $40,000 US dollars to

23:12

kill Curtis Green. Force went right

23:14

ahead and staged Green's murder. He

23:16

sent fake pictures of Green's bloody

23:18

body to Dread Pirate Roberts as

23:20

evidence that the job was done.

23:23

And that meant that Karl Force

23:25

had proved himself to the Dread

23:27

Pirate Roberts, and he was finally

23:29

allowed into the trusted circle of

23:31

users that the mysterious admin was

23:34

a bit more open with. No!

23:36

Aladdin's cave had opened, opened sesame.

23:38

That's what car force is saying.

23:40

Car force! Open says to me.

23:42

So a few months later, a

23:45

second breakthrough showed up, this time

23:47

from the FBI, who had been

23:49

working hard. to find the Silk

23:51

Road servers. And on the 23rd

23:53

of July 2013, they did. Silk

23:56

Road's home was an anonymous server

23:58

farm in Iceland, rented by an

24:00

even more anonymous user called Frosty.

24:02

Good joke. How the FBI pulled

24:04

this off is very much up

24:07

for debate. The team that found

24:09

the server in Iceland have always

24:11

maintained that they exploited a vulnerability

24:13

in the site's capture software. Now,

24:15

capture is something that we all

24:18

obviously use all the time. It's

24:20

that frustrating little thing that pops

24:22

up and asks you to click

24:24

on pictures of bikes and traffic

24:26

lights in order to prove that

24:28

you're not a robot. What I

24:31

will say about capture is I

24:33

hate doing them because it is,

24:35

rumored, I believe it, that it

24:37

is to teach AI. Oh, I

24:39

believe that. Yes. So it's not

24:42

just to check you're not a

24:44

robot. It's also directly feeding into

24:46

like AI. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of

24:48

how to make how to make

24:50

the robot understand. So I've obviously

24:53

been looking at dresses and stuff.

24:55

And one of the captures on

24:57

one of the websites I was

24:59

using was which are boots and

25:01

which are shoes. And I thought

25:04

that was pretty funny. But stay

25:06

away from me robot. But still,

25:08

fucking AI farming your brain. As

25:10

I click on these things, because

25:12

I have to. As I'm doing

25:15

exactly what you want me to

25:17

do. I know, I hate it.

25:19

I hate it. So, yeah, basically,

25:21

capture, that's what they're doing. So

25:23

the FBI claim that while logging

25:26

into the Silk Road, they were

25:28

able to track the data from

25:30

their capture entry back to the

25:32

server in Iceland. Except, as we

25:34

discussed earlier, every time you use

25:37

TOR, it packages up your data,

25:39

scrambles it, and sends it all

25:41

around the world before it gets

25:43

to its destination. It is impossible

25:45

to track. Even for the FBI.

25:48

It is just not physically or

25:50

mathematically. possible. So yeah, this capture

25:52

claim has been described by cyber

25:54

security experts as quote, laughable and

25:56

bullshit. Pretty damning. The only thing

25:59

worse I've described is how Milkmanner,

26:01

the brand new... TV show has

26:03

been described as, quote, grotesque and

26:05

unhinged. And I cannot wait to

26:07

watch it. I think you mean

26:10

Kugga Kabban? Kugga Kaman, which is

26:12

our accompanying book cars. Sign up

26:14

at patron.com Sasha had handed for

26:16

more. Current dark web dwellers also

26:18

think the FBI are full of

26:21

shit. Every single website that we

26:23

looked out on the dark web

26:25

while we were writing this episode

26:27

has a capture login before you're

26:29

able to access any site. So

26:32

if capture didn't work, if the

26:34

FBI had very publicly penetrated this

26:36

system, why is anyone still using

26:38

it? And also why, you might

26:40

ask, did we go on the

26:43

dark web to look at illegal

26:45

drug markets? Well, firstly, we wanted

26:47

to see if they were still

26:49

there, and they are. And secondly,

26:51

we're switching up the format a

26:54

little bit, and we're going to

26:56

do a little quiz about how

26:58

much things cost on the dark

27:00

web. I don't know the answers,

27:02

neither just through, we're going to

27:04

see. We're going to see. This

27:07

is exciting. I see the clever

27:09

little tactic here to hide the

27:11

answers highlight to see. Okay, smart.

27:13

And this quiz game, Extravagansa, is

27:15

called dealer or no dealer. That's

27:18

very good. So we asked our

27:20

Trustee Serb to scour pages of

27:22

one of the currently most popular

27:24

dark net market places, which is

27:26

called Aesap Market. Do you remember

27:29

when Liam Gallagher called Aesap Rocky,

27:31

what'sap Ricky? Anyway, so it's what's

27:33

up supermarket sweep is what we're

27:35

playing. And it is important to

27:37

point out as an unbiased show

27:40

here, other illegal market places are

27:42

also available. So take your pick.

27:44

You don't have to use what's

27:46

up supermarket sweep. So Sims put

27:48

together this sort of questions all

27:51

about how the most popular listing

27:53

costs on the dark web. So

27:55

first question, how much is a

27:57

kilo? of tripe diesel indoor weed

27:59

on the dark web Saritibala. Tripe.

28:02

diesel indoor weed. Okay, a kilo

28:04

of it. Oh, well, I've seen

28:06

the answer now. Oh, can you

28:08

see when I do that? Oh,

28:10

sorry. I'm sorry. I only sort

28:13

of for a split second, but

28:15

it looked like it might have

28:17

been about just under $5,000. Yes,

28:19

sorry. I feel right. Okay, I

28:21

won't look at the next one.

28:24

Okay. So I'll ask you this

28:26

one. Okay. How much, Hannah? Do

28:28

2,000 Adorole pills cost on the

28:30

dark web? that a singular valium

28:32

is between 20 and 50 p.

28:35

Okay. So times that by 2000

28:37

and then... No, don't let me

28:39

do math. And then, you know,

28:41

reduce it by like 10% for

28:43

the sake of buying in bulk?

28:46

I'm done. 2,000 adder-all pills. 2,000

28:48

adder-all pills, I'm going to say

28:50

4,500 dollars. A

28:53

lot cheaper, 1,608 US dollars. So there

28:55

you go, bargain. All right, what about

28:58

20 grams of pure crack cocaine? Get

29:00

all of the nonsense out of the

29:02

way, straight to the crack cocaine. I

29:04

want to go back to the tripe

29:07

diesel and all weed. Okay, 20 grams

29:09

of pure crack cocaine. Like, I have

29:11

no idea how much cocaine cost. So

29:14

if you were to buy a singular

29:16

ground, street value. Yep. Is between 60

29:18

to 80 pounds. Jesus. program. Okay so

29:20

allegedly let's say it's let's say let's

29:23

say let's land in the middle let's

29:25

call it 50 and then times out

29:27

by 20 so that is taking us

29:29

to a thousand but then this is

29:32

pure crack cocaine so I'm assuming it's

29:34

a higher quality than what you're buying

29:36

on the street so then I'm gonna

29:38

I think all of I think it

29:41

is safe to say that everything that

29:43

was on Silk Road everything was above

29:45

street quality okay in that case I'll

29:48

double it let's say two thousand Oof,

29:51

$1,493 US dollars. Do you

29:53

know what? I actually worked

29:56

that in pounds, worked that

29:58

out in pounds thanks to

30:00

your handy input. So it

30:02

is. about 1,500 US dollars.

30:05

Nice! Okay, Hannah, how much

30:07

would 11 fake 50 euro

30:09

banknotes on the dark web

30:12

cost you? Okay, firstly why

30:14

would you ever buy a

30:16

50 euro banknote? Because nobody

30:18

takes them and they attract

30:21

more attention people have pens

30:23

to test them. Yeah. Also

30:25

who's using cash? Anyway, 11.

30:28

25 P for 11. No

30:31

140 US dollars all

30:33

right and how much?

30:35

For 25,000 real followers

30:38

on Instagram you can

30:40

also get those on

30:42

the dark web apparently

30:44

Yeah real followers 25,000

30:47

I'd hope that this

30:49

wouldn't be too much

30:51

like maybe 500 Well,

30:54

that is bargain. You just also

30:56

have to like sign away your

30:58

soul because that sounds so miserable

31:00

to be buying Instagram followers. Okay, final

31:02

one. Final one. Hannah. Yes. How

31:05

much is a stolen credit card with

31:07

a balance of 20,000 US dollars on

31:09

it? A balance or a limit?

31:11

A balance or a balance, but... Probably

31:14

a limit. 20,000 dollars. So I assume

31:16

there's also going to be the

31:18

risk of you've got to use it

31:20

before that person blocks it. A

31:22

grand. 25

31:25

US dollars! What? What? Well, I've

31:27

learned absolutely nothing. But hopefully listeners

31:30

you have. So there you go,

31:32

that is the end of our

31:34

quiz. Dealer or no dealer. Well

31:36

done everyone. Now we're going to

31:39

leave all of the fun to

31:41

bind and get into more tech

31:43

bullshit. So, let's get back to

31:45

the story. The FBI have just

31:48

found the servers that are hosting

31:50

Silk Road and they found them

31:52

in Iceland and they found out

31:54

that they were being rented by

31:57

a person called... Prosty. Because the

31:59

FBI are the FBI, we won't

32:01

ever action. know how they found

32:03

those servers in Iceland, rented by

32:06

a man called Frosty. Yeah, because

32:08

the other admins on the site

32:10

didn't know where the servers were.

32:12

In fact, even the Dread Pirate

32:15

Roberts didn't know where the servers

32:17

were. The whole point in renting

32:19

a server through an anonymous service

32:21

is that the location is anonymous,

32:23

even to the person paying for

32:26

it. However, the explanation that most

32:28

people believe is that the FBI

32:30

broke the law. Shock horror. Either...

32:32

the FBI themselves or with the

32:35

help of the NSA, the FBI

32:37

gained access to data in other

32:39

countries that they were not allowed

32:41

to view. Now this might not

32:44

seem like a big deal, but

32:46

it means that the FBI almost

32:48

certainly draw through countless terabytes of

32:50

data which was completely unrelated to

32:53

the Silk Road and belonged to

32:55

users way way way way out

32:57

of their jurisdiction, which once again

32:59

is setting my LL. Fucking Spidey

33:02

Cences Tingling because that is bad

33:04

vibes. However, that's going to be

33:06

the name of your manifesto. L

33:08

Spidey Cences Spite. Exactly. Go on

33:11

bad vibes. However, in terms of

33:13

our story, it doesn't really matter

33:15

how the FBI found the Silk

33:17

Road service. It just matters that

33:20

they did. But for the sake

33:22

of your fucking security, it does.

33:24

Cutted two years time and you're

33:26

suddenly a prepper living underground. So

33:29

now the FBI had the physical

33:31

server. Agents were able to view

33:33

every message, every sale, and every

33:35

transaction that had ever happened on

33:38

Silk Road. And it also meant

33:40

that in theory, the FBI could

33:42

shut down the whole operation. Did

33:44

they? No. And when we all

33:47

found out about that, the FBI

33:49

did get quite a lot of

33:51

stick. given that they technically helped

33:53

to run Silk Road for a

33:55

number of months before it was

33:58

eventually closed. But in Venice, if

34:00

the service got shut down, nothing

34:02

would have changed. Yeah, it's again

34:04

very... very very similar to the

34:07

story in hunting warhead. They got

34:09

a lot of sick for why

34:11

didn't you just shut down Charles

34:13

Play as soon as you got

34:16

access to it but then they

34:18

wouldn't have caught anybody. And Silk

34:20

Road and Charles Play would have

34:22

gone down for a few days

34:25

maybe even a couple of weeks

34:27

but they would have popped up

34:29

again hosted by a completely different

34:31

anonymous server somewhere else in the

34:34

world and the FBI would have

34:36

had to start all over again.

34:38

Whereas if the FBI kept things

34:40

quiet and let the business run

34:43

as usual, Allah hunting warhead, then

34:45

dread pirate pirate Roberts. would be

34:47

very exposed and none the wiser.

34:49

Besides, the server had already given

34:52

them some key information. The user,

34:54

Frosty, who rented the Silk Road

34:56

server, logged in from somewhere in

34:58

San Francisco, California. Silk Road was

35:01

now in serious trouble. Because in

35:03

a backroom of the FBI, a

35:05

much less glamorous team was also

35:07

working on destroying the world's biggest

35:10

online drug marketplace. The tax inspector.

35:12

They're here! Whoo! And much like

35:14

our capone, it would be them

35:16

that would catch up with Silk

35:19

Road. One of these tax grammlings

35:21

was Gary Alfred. He was tracking

35:23

all of the Bitcoin that went

35:25

through Silk Road. Bitcoin may not

35:28

be untraceable, but Gary still wasn't

35:30

getting anywhere. All the money was

35:32

just jumping from one anonymous wallet

35:34

to another, none of which could

35:36

be connected, like we said earlier,

35:39

to a real-life identity. So... In

35:41

his spare time, Gary, who sounds

35:43

like a right laugh, started doing

35:45

some research of his own into

35:48

Silk Road using Google. Honest weekends,

35:50

Gary started searching for mentions of

35:52

Silk Road before the article in

35:54

Gorka was published. Again, if he

35:57

was a detective and he was

35:59

just working his spare time to

36:01

crack this child and we'd be

36:03

like, Gary's a hero! He's what

36:06

we're missing from law enforcement and

36:08

the government, competence and hard work

36:10

and we're like, fuck you, Gary!

36:12

Noxilla? Anyway. he's doing he's looking

36:15

for people who knew about Silk

36:17

Road before it went mainstream which

36:19

is why he's looking for posts

36:21

that happened before the gorker article

36:24

and in time Gary found someone

36:26

posting on a hallucinogenic mushroom forum

36:28

asking if anyone had tried Silk

36:30

Road and prompting Musers to give

36:33

it a go and then report

36:35

back. That post had been submitted

36:37

by a user called Altoid and

36:39

Altoid been a very busy person.

36:42

posted similar listings on a number

36:44

of different forums, all pushing people

36:46

to try Silk Road, but almost

36:48

as if they were advertising it.

36:51

Gary then searched for posts by

36:53

Altoid, made before Silk Road was

36:55

set up, and voila. He found

36:57

a series of posts on a

37:00

Bitcoin forum, discussing setting up an

37:02

anonymous marketplace on the dark web.

37:04

There were several posts asking for

37:06

help and advice on this anonymous

37:08

project. The last post from Altoid

37:11

that Gary found was written in

37:13

October 2011, after Silk Road had

37:15

gone viral. And in this post,

37:17

Altoid asked if anyone was interested

37:20

in participating in such a project.

37:22

And if they were, they should

37:24

contact them. And then... This is

37:26

so fucking dumb. Altoid... listed... their

37:29

real-life email address. No! Altoid! And

37:31

it's even worse because it isn't

37:33

Honey Bunny 3,000 or whatever at

37:35

Hotmail.co. UK. It's Ross dot all-bricked@gmail.com.

37:38

Facken al Ross. So Ross Albrick

37:40

was born in March 1984 to

37:42

a middle-class family in Austin, Texas.

37:44

He was hardworking, if a little

37:47

goofy. and as a teenager became

37:49

an Eagle Scout, just like his

37:51

father Kirk. Ross was also a

37:53

maths prodigy and got a full

37:56

scholarship to the University of Texas

37:58

to study physics. Then he got

38:00

another full scholarship to Penn State

38:02

to study material science and engineering.

38:05

Once he got to Penn State,

38:07

Ross's outlook on life began to

38:09

change. And with the speed of

38:11

effectless philosophy student, Ross became obsessed

38:14

with libertarianism and Austrian economics. Is

38:16

your favorite philosopher Nietzsche, fucking grow

38:18

up? So after graduating from Penn

38:20

State, Ross told his mum that

38:23

he no longer was interested in

38:25

engineering. He was going to run

38:27

an online bookshop instead. And I've

38:29

watched a documentary about Jeff Basos

38:32

and everyone laughed at him too.

38:34

This bookshop sold second-hand books nationally

38:36

and donated a portion of those

38:38

proceeds to a local charity. Basos

38:40

didn't make it by giving to

38:43

charity and neither did Ross. It

38:45

wasn't long before the bookshop went

38:47

bust. And it was shortly after

38:49

the collapse of his book dream

38:52

that Ross posted a very long

38:54

and rambling update on his LinkedIn

38:56

of all places. Worst place to

38:58

post long rambling updates. Don't do

39:01

it. It doesn't make you look

39:03

particularly higherable, does it? No, don't.

39:05

That's the last place you should

39:07

be posting that kind of shit.

39:10

Ross wrote, my goals have shifted.

39:12

I want to use economic theory

39:14

as a means to abolish the

39:16

use of coercion and aggression amongst

39:19

mankind. Oh no. Ross. Sounds like

39:21

the start of a manifesto. He

39:23

went on to write, I am

39:25

creating an economic simulation. to give

39:28

people a first-hand experience of what

39:30

it would be like to live

39:32

in a world without the systemic

39:34

use of force. I think someone's

39:37

been on too many hallucinogenic mushrooms,

39:39

that's what I think. So, after

39:41

he posted that, Ross moved to

39:43

Sydney in Australia to live with

39:46

his sister whose name is Callie.

39:48

His family thought he was freelancing

39:50

in computer finance while he was

39:52

out there. He wasn't. After this

39:55

stint in Australia, Ross returned to

39:57

America, Ross returned to America. project

39:59

with his friend Rennie Pinnell. The

40:01

pair even filmed a 30-minute interview

40:04

between themselves documenting their new chapter.

40:06

So apparently the idea that

40:08

Renee had was so lucrative

40:10

he managed to convince Ross

40:12

to come back to America

40:15

and join him in San

40:17

Francisco. Now back to Gary, the

40:19

tax gremlin and a stand-up guy

40:21

at his work. Man doing good

40:24

job. Well he found this 30-minute

40:26

video that Renee and Ross had

40:28

filmed. And he also found the

40:31

LinkedIn post. And he also, of

40:33

course, found Ross's actual email address,

40:35

which is his name. With his

40:37

fucking for a minute. I'm surprised

40:39

he didn't also include his

40:41

mother's maiden name and his first

40:43

phone page. And the worst thing is

40:45

that Gary found all of this through

40:47

a simple Google search. So Gary

40:49

scuttled off to his mates at the

40:52

FBI. But no one was that bothered.

40:54

Everyone was far too focused

40:56

on the IP address linking Dread

40:58

Pirate Robbers to San Francisco. Excuse

41:00

me guys, I've got an idea!

41:02

Shut up Gary! Yeah, this is

41:05

the thing, they're all like so

41:07

tied up with the highbrow technical

41:09

side of it. Gary's just literally

41:11

fucking googled this and found it

41:13

through some good old-fashioned detective

41:15

work, you know? So Gary went

41:18

over their heads when he got

41:20

ignored by everyone every FBI and

41:22

he went straight to his supervisor.

41:24

Homeland Security and again the FBI.

41:27

But again nobody particularly cared

41:29

about what Gary had to

41:31

say. They'd never heard of anyone

41:34

on the Silk Road posting under

41:36

the name Altoid or someone

41:38

called Ross Ulbrick. Why don't you

41:40

just put one person on following

41:42

up with Gary? You haven't got

41:44

one intern that can just do

41:46

this Google search and double check

41:48

Gary's work? The arrogance of it

41:51

all. So the call was almost over when

41:53

Gary offhandedly said that he had also

41:55

seen some posts which he thought were

41:57

from Ulbrick using another moniker. Frosty.

42:00

He said that he couldn't be

42:02

sure though, and that's why he

42:04

hadn't brought it up at first.

42:06

At this point, the call went

42:09

silent. Everything clicked. Frosty owned the

42:11

Silk Road. Frosty was the Dread

42:13

Pirate Robbers, and the Dread Pirate

42:16

Robbers was Ross Ulbrick. Sob! But

42:18

still! The FBI needed a lot

42:20

more for an arrest. And that

42:22

would be tricky. Anything that physically

42:25

connected Ulbrickt. to the Silk Road

42:27

would be encrypted and hidden deep

42:29

on his own computers. Unless the

42:32

FBI caught Albrick actually logged in

42:34

to Silk Road, it would be

42:36

impossible to prove that he was

42:38

Dread Pirate Roberts. So, undercover agents

42:41

began staking out Albrick's home in

42:43

San Francisco, a place he'd found

42:45

on Craigslist and rented under a

42:48

fake name. It soon became clear

42:50

that whenever Albrick signed into Silk

42:52

Road, he did so. from a

42:54

public library, which is a good

42:57

idea for an online drug lord,

42:59

but it also left him incredibly

43:01

vulnerable offline in the real world.

43:04

Once it was established that Ulbrick

43:06

was signing into Silk Road via

43:08

the library, it was simple enough

43:10

to lure him there. On the

43:13

1st of October, the DEA and

43:15

FBI ran a sting operation to

43:17

catch Ulbrick logging in as the

43:20

Dread Pirate Roberts in that public

43:22

library. An undercover agent... who had

43:24

established themselves as a trusted seller

43:26

on the site, messaged the Dread

43:29

Pirate Roberts, asking for some help

43:31

with an order. And sure enough,

43:33

Obrick left his house and travelled

43:36

to the local library to respond

43:38

to this message. Agents followed Obrick

43:40

on this journey, and watched as

43:42

he walked into a library filled

43:45

with even more undercover agents. Obrick

43:47

sat down, unfolded his laptop, and

43:49

logged into the silk road. At

43:52

this very moment... A small green

43:54

circle lit up on the Silk

43:56

Road's messaging service. The Dread Pirate

43:58

Roberts was online. Two

44:00

agents staged a loud argument behind

44:03

Albrick, who spun around to watch

44:05

the commotion. As he did so,

44:07

a DEA agent wearing rubber gloves

44:10

swooped round and grabbed Ross Albrick's

44:12

laptop. Albrick was signed in as

44:14

the Dread Pirate Roberts on the

44:16

Silk Road. The chick was armed.

44:19

Ross Albrick, naturally, was arrested, and

44:21

later that same day, Silk Road

44:23

servers went down. Ross was held

44:25

in a jail in Oakland and

44:28

denied bail based on the attempted

44:30

murder of Curtis Green. Prosecutors argue

44:32

that if Albrick was released, then

44:34

he might try and take out

44:37

any witnesses who could make statements

44:39

against him. After a month, Ross

44:41

Albrick was extradited to New York,

44:43

where he was finally indicted for

44:46

a litany of crimes. The 27-year-old

44:48

middle-class boy from Texas was charged

44:50

with conspiracy to traffic narcotics, criminal

44:52

enterprise, and money laundering. Ross

44:55

spent the next year in prison awaiting

44:57

trial, several weeks of which were in

44:59

solitary confinement. While this wasn't ideal for

45:02

him, it did give his legal team,

45:04

led by Joshua Dradle, the opportunity to

45:06

create a multifaceted defence. When the trial

45:08

began, in December 2014, the word on

45:11

the street was that all bricks team

45:13

were confident, so confident in fact, that

45:15

they had rejected a plea bargain. However,

45:17

from the moment the trial began, it

45:19

became incredibly clear that their confidence may

45:22

have been misguided. Their first form of

45:24

defence was attack, as Joshua Drato tried

45:26

to have the case dismissed altogether because

45:28

of the shit the FBI pulled on

45:31

finding that server in Iceland, because as

45:33

we already know there was strong evidence

45:35

to suggest that the server in Iceland

45:37

had been hacked by the FBI without

45:39

a warrant. Which is so many different

45:42

kinds of illegal and also, as we

45:44

discussed earlier, kind of the only way

45:46

they can have done it. Yes. And

45:48

so if this was true, which like

45:51

Hannah just said, seems like the only

45:53

way that they could possibly have found

45:55

this in... information, then therefore any evidence

45:57

collected through that illegal hacking should have

46:00

been inadmissible in court. And that means

46:02

there would have been a mistrial, or

46:04

at the very least, it would make

46:06

an enormous amount of damage to the

46:08

prosecution's argument. But no dice. The judge

46:11

dismissed this request, unsurprisingly. So, Dretel tried

46:13

something different. Rewriting the narrative. Dretel said,

46:15

sure, all brick had set up, Silk

46:17

Road. But he'd never been dread pirate

46:20

pirate pirate Roberts. They argued that Albrick

46:22

had actually sold the site to another

46:24

user in the middle of 2011 and

46:26

hadn't been involved with it since. A

46:29

story that was backed up by the

46:31

interview in Forbes. The defence also argued

46:33

that several people have been operating as

46:35

the user known as Dread Pirate Roberts,

46:37

which of course is what the name

46:40

suggests. And that meant that even if

46:42

Albrick had been able to log in

46:44

as Dread Pirate Roberts to the site,

46:46

there was absolutely no way of proving

46:49

what had been written by him. and

46:51

what had been written by someone else.

46:53

Therefore, it was impossible to prove that

46:55

Albrick had ordered the hit on Curtis

46:58

Green. And to be fair, that is

47:00

a logical argument. Plausible even. And on

47:02

top of that, Albrick's libertarian ideals didn't

47:04

really leave that much room for murder,

47:06

and neither did the ideals of Dread

47:09

Pirate Roberts. Whoever had been posting long

47:11

essays on Austrian economics and running their

47:13

own book club on Silk Road didn't

47:15

really seem to have that much in

47:18

common. with the Dread Pirate Roberts who'd

47:20

been asking to have people killed. Actually,

47:22

we've seen several X Silk Road admins

47:24

stating that they knew for a fact

47:26

there was more than one person using

47:29

the Dread Pirate Roberts account. And that

47:31

makes sense. It's not like Amazon's Twitter

47:33

account is run by a singular person.

47:35

Why would one person run Silk Road's

47:38

main form of communication? It's a big

47:40

job. Yeah. I mean, we've got a

47:42

team of six and we've run a

47:44

podcast. And we're still exhausted all the

47:47

time. Yes. But, regardless, this argument didn't

47:49

get very far in the courtroom. During

47:51

cross-examination... Drato did manage to prove that

47:53

one of the undercover agents who'd been

47:55

talking to Dread Pirate Roberts had long

47:58

suspected he was talking to more than

48:00

one person. However, this was dismissed as

48:02

hearsay and the line of questioning was

48:04

struck from the record. The defence was

48:07

then forbidden from questioning witnesses on other

48:09

potential suspects. On the other hand, the

48:11

prosecution argued that Ulbrick had been logged

48:13

into the Silk Road at the time

48:16

he had been caught. and that there

48:18

were journal entries and Bitcoin on his

48:20

laptop that proved he had been running

48:22

Silk Road. And unlike the evidence from

48:24

the FBI, this was pretty watertight. Drato

48:27

then tried to bring in an expert

48:29

witness who could help explain to the

48:31

judge and jury how Tor worked, how

48:33

the Silk Road was encrypted, and how

48:36

it was impossible to pin it all

48:38

on one person. However, again this was

48:40

denied by the court who felt that

48:42

no further explanation was needed. How are

48:45

you going to tell me that no

48:47

further explanation on all of those very

48:49

very complicated technical things are needed for

48:51

a jury that probably is made up

48:53

of people that haven't got a fucking

48:56

clue? Josh Drato and his team had

48:58

run out of lifelines for Ross Ulbrick,

49:00

the trial ended abruptly the next day

49:02

with the defence unable to submit anything

49:05

worthwhile in the case? And so, Ross

49:07

Ulbrick was convicted on seven counts, distributing

49:09

narcotics, conspiracy to commit money hacking, being

49:11

among them. But, interestingly, Ross was never

49:13

charged with murder for hire. So, the

49:16

attempted murder of Curtis Green that Dread

49:18

Pirate Roberts ordered. Although, that crime was

49:20

used to keep the identities of some

49:22

witnesses in the trial anonymous, and it

49:25

also put restrictions on the defence's line

49:27

of questioning, which they can't really do

49:29

if he hasn't been charged with it.

49:31

Tricky stuff. Ultimately... Ross Albrickt was given

49:34

a whole life sentence with a minimum

49:36

term of 30 years. And the judge

49:38

had this to say about his libertarian

49:40

ideals. No drug deal. from the Bronx

49:42

selling meth or heroin or crack has

49:45

ever made these kinds of arguments to

49:47

the court. It is a privileged argument.

49:49

It is an argument from one of

49:51

privilege. You are no better a person

49:54

than any other drug dealer and your

49:56

education does not give you a special

49:58

place of privilege within our criminal justice

50:00

system. Ouch. So where does that leave

50:03

us? Was Ross Albrick the Dread Pirate

50:05

Roberts? Probably at some stage. His ideals

50:07

certainly match with those posted by the

50:09

notorious admin of Silk Road and also

50:11

some journals and Bitcoin on his laptop

50:14

and the fact that he was logged

50:16

in as Dread Pirate Roberts do seem

50:18

to point in that direction too. That's

50:20

quite difficult to argue with. But did

50:23

he order the hit on Curtis Green?

50:25

Maybe, I mean, it's impossible for us

50:27

to know for sure, but it does

50:29

seem a little bit out of character

50:32

for him. So let's zoom out and

50:34

have a look at the bigger picture.

50:36

Did Silk Road back up the big

50:38

social claims made by Ross Albrickt? Did

50:40

he really create an economic simulation to

50:43

give people first-hand experience of what it

50:45

would be like to live in a

50:47

world without the systemic use of force?

50:49

Well, according to Judith Aldridge, a law

50:52

professor at the University of Manchester, and

50:54

David Dakari Hetu, her counterpart at the

50:56

University of Montreal, maybe. This pair published

50:58

a paper in May 2014 that described

51:00

the Silk Road... as a quote paradigm

51:03

shifting criminal innovation. And I would have

51:05

to agree with that. They said that

51:07

the risk to both the dealer and

51:09

the user had been reduced massively by

51:12

Silk Road. Although, as many others have

51:14

pointed out, it doesn't negate the other

51:16

human tragedies involved in the production of

51:18

drugs. It simply makes them safer for

51:21

those people using them. And finally, what

51:23

is the legacy of the Silk Road?

51:25

It's believed that over the site's lifetime.

51:27

About 1.2 million transactions took place. with

51:29

around 9.5 million bitcoins. From that it's

51:32

believed that Ross Ulbrick alone took around

51:34

600,000 bitcoins in commission. The value of

51:36

Bitcoin between 2011 and 2012 was pretty

51:38

volatile, but by taking a rough average

51:41

of around $200 per Bitcoin or so,

51:43

this would point to a turnover of

51:45

around $1.8 billion that the website was

51:47

taking. With the Silk Road slash Dread

51:50

slash Red Pirate Robert's Ross Ulbrick making...

51:52

around $120 million in commission. However, the

51:54

price of Bitcoin has risen in the

51:56

10 years since the Silk Road was

51:58

seized to around $22,000 per Bitcoin. So

52:01

this would mean that the total value

52:03

of the Bitcoin made on Silk Road

52:05

in 2023 is roughly $14 billion. Meaning

52:07

that if Ross Ulbrig still has access

52:10

to just 10% of his earnings through

52:12

the Silk Road. He's still within the

52:14

top 3,000 richest people on the planet.

52:16

And this is the thing. Everyone was

52:19

trying to shut him down because of

52:21

the money. Let's be clear. If they

52:23

could have got a piece of that

52:25

tasty tasty tax pie, no one gives

52:27

a far. But we're going to leave

52:30

you with some thoughts about drugs and

52:32

the dark web. As we proved earlier

52:34

with our dealer or no dealer quiz.

52:36

The hidden internet is utterly filled with

52:39

marketplaces to buy all of your favourite

52:41

narcotics. Although, it has to be said,

52:43

the idea of not selling anything designed

52:45

to harm or defraud, which of course

52:47

was one of the central tenets of

52:50

Silk Road in the beginning, has totally

52:52

gone out of the window now. Most

52:54

of these dark web marketplaces are filled

52:56

to the brim with stolen credit cards,

52:59

passports and counterfeit cash. Yeah. So there's

53:01

that. And also, again, I'm not going

53:03

to pretend that drugs don't cause harm.

53:05

Of course they do, like let's make

53:08

that very, very clear. I think here

53:10

it's just this idea of these things

53:12

were happening anyway. and guy

53:14

or these people who

53:16

set this up

53:19

were trying to set

53:21

up a website

53:23

in which the user

53:25

could be safer could

53:28

be they were going

53:30

to buy it

53:32

anyway, they don't have

53:34

to go into

53:37

a shady back alley

53:39

and buy drugs

53:41

from a random person

53:43

who might end

53:45

up murdering them. They

53:48

can buy it

53:50

from the safety of

53:52

their own home

53:54

and trust in the

53:57

quality of the

53:59

product that they were

54:01

buying. Whether you

54:03

choose to do it

54:06

or not, it's

54:08

not a good thing.

54:10

It's not good

54:12

for you. But if

54:14

that's the ethos

54:17

of Silk Road, which

54:19

it very much

54:21

seems like it was,

54:23

it then it's not a good

54:26

thing. It's not good for you. There

54:28

you go. Silk Road, Dread Pirate, or

54:30

Roberts, and poor old Check

54:32

it out. Done. Tick. digital.

54:35

So yeah, that is it digital.

54:37

hope you enjoyed it. We'll

54:39

be back hope time it. some

54:42

other things. next time for some other things.

54:44

Hooray! Bye.