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distressing incidents if you feel at anytime you need support please contact your local crisis center for suggested
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00:01:47
Ross Ulbricht - just put the last lines of his emergency list into action find place to live on Craigslist for cash and
00:01:54
create new identity name and backstory he found a room to rent on Craigslist paid cash and said his name was Joshua
00:02:03
Terry he gave his new roommates a backstory for Joshua one that was very similar to his own
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he ordered fake IDs for his new identity from Silk Road but those fake IDs were intercepted by Customs and Border
00:02:16
Protection and today had passed them on to the Homeland Security office in San Francisco now two agents from Homeland
00:02:25
Security were knocking on Ross's door Ross froze when he saw the agents he thought it could only mean one thing
00:02:33
but he managed to compose himself and open the door the agents asked him to step outside and Duras complied the
00:02:43
agents showed him the fake IDs Ross didn't utter a word but he couldn't hide the fear on his face it was shaking this
00:02:54
was it his worst fears had come true it was all over they demanded to see his real ID
00:03:03
Ross handed it over and the agents did some checks but nothing flagged the agents could see how nervous he was and
00:03:13
they told him to settle down they weren't going to arrest him over a few fake IDs they just wanted information
00:03:19
where did he get the IDs from rhasta wasn't sure what was happening were they trying to treat him did they
00:03:28
know everything the agents tried to put him at ease again we don't want a formal statement
00:03:35
or anything you don't have to incriminate yourself just tell us in hypotheticals how we would go about
00:03:40
getting some of these made up Ross started to believe they had no idea who he really was he loosened up he told the
00:03:51
agents that hypothetically anyone could go online to the dark web to a place called Silk Road and to buy anything
00:03:57
they wanted the agents had no idea what Silk Road was they weren't on any of the
00:04:03
task forces they weren't trying to make a case against Silk Road or the Dread Pirate Roberts they just wanted to know
00:04:10
about the IDs the agents believed everything checked out and asked Ross for a phone number in
00:04:16
case they needed to get back in touch with him he said he didn't have one but he did give them a fake email address
00:04:23
fractal form at tor mail comm the San Francisco homeland security agents think for us and left it at that for the time
00:04:31
being ruff shut the door and to let out a huge sigh of relief meanwhile July was proving to be a very
00:04:44
busy month for Jarod der-yeghiayan the homeland security agent in Chicago on July 14 the day after the deconfliction
00:04:52
meeting with all of the other agencies jared received a call from FBI agent Cristobal from the cybercrime division
00:05:00
although Tarbell wasn't present at the deconfliction meeting he watched Jared's presentation via
00:05:06
videolink and was impressed Tarbell wanted to work with Jerrod Tarbell explained to Jerrod that he saw the
00:05:14
chrome team had the holy grail of the Silk Road case Silk Road server but they hadn't been working on the case for that
00:05:21
long and they weren't sure where to start looking within the files so they wanted Jarrett to fly to New York and
00:05:27
work with them Jared said he would love to so long as he could still work on an important part of the case that he had
00:05:35
developed Jared was still working with the Silk Road seller accounts that he now had control of after identifying and
00:05:43
arresting the original owners Jared would take over the account and start striking up conversations with both
00:05:49
buyers and sellers with this method he began talking to a volunteer moderator on Silk Road that went by the name
00:05:56
Cirrus after a few weeks of chatting Jared became friends with Cirrus and told her he wanted to send her a gift
00:06:03
Cirrus allowed the gesture and provided an address the next thing Cirrus new agents from
00:06:11
Homeland Security were raiding her house in Texas during the raid jared introduced himself to Cirrus and gave
00:06:19
her two options they should give up her account and help the investigation or she would be charged Cirrus chose to
00:06:29
give up her account Jared's plan was to become Cirrus he interviewed her in depth
00:06:36
learning everything about what she did on Silk Road when did she log on when did she log out how long was she
00:06:42
online for per day what was her writing style when she wrote messages and posted
00:06:47
on the forums what did she post about Jared bought the exact computer Cirrus hub and installed
00:06:54
all of the same programs she had he didn't want to leave anything to chance when he felt he had everything squared
00:07:01
away he logged onto Silk Road and it became Cirrus just after he logged on Cirrus received the message from the
00:07:11
Dread Pirate Roberts offering a paid moderators job but before he would put her on the payroll he required a
00:07:17
driver's license or passport Jared arranged a fake driver's license with a photograph of a female agent and sent
00:07:25
the Dread Pirate Roberts the ID it only took a few minutes for the Dread Pirate Roberts to respond and put Cirrus to
00:07:33
work there was a huge break in the investigation by August Jared was working in the
00:07:45
Chicago Homeland Security office by day and working as cirrus the Silk Road moderator by night and it was at this
00:07:51
time he was asked to fly to New York to assist the FBI cybercrime division when he got to the FBI offices in New York
00:08:00
agent Christabel showed Jared the computer where they had reconstructed Silk Road from the files on the server
00:08:07
Jared stared at the computer and afterwards he stared at a nearby wall that had an 8 foot long piece of paper
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stuck on it there were IP addresses written down on the paper with descriptions of where
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each IP address was located as Jared kept his eyes on the paper Tarbell explained to him some of the different
00:08:29
IP addresses they had one was a server for the chat clients of Silk Road another was a server that stored the
00:08:36
bitcoins from the site another was for the mastermind section of the site which was Dread Pirate Roberts section as the
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main administrator as Tarbell continued explaining the numbers Jared noticed the
00:08:51
name no me Toby's in San Francisco Tarbell explained that it was a cafe and someone had logged in and tried to erase
00:08:58
a Silk Road server from there because of that the FBI had a theory that the Dread
00:09:04
Pirate Roberts either lived had visited or even possibly still lived in San Francisco and had used the cafes Wi-Fi
00:09:11
to access Silk Road although as Tarbell explained to Jarrod as quoted in the book American kingpin by Nick Bilton not
00:09:20
much I can do with it what am I going to do send an FBI agent into a coffee shop
00:09:25
in San Francisco and tell them to look for someone on a laptop but they were still monitoring the cafes Internet
00:09:33
traffic to see if they could find anything else after this Jarrod took a good look at the Silk Road offline
00:09:42
version or the reconstructed version that the FBI had made it was essentially a site that looked exactly like Silk
00:09:49
Road and had everything that Silk Road had except that it was a life it was just a clone they created
00:09:55
using the server to assist their investigation while Jared went through the Dread Pirate Roberts different chat
00:10:02
logs he found more chats between him and the DEA agent Carl Force who was undercover on the site posing his nob
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Jared noticed that there was also now encrypted chats between them Jared asked Tarbell if he thought Carl
00:10:17
force was trying to obstruct the investigation in some way Tarbell said he did feel that something was off about
00:10:23
him then another visitor arrived at the cybercrime office Gary Alford the IRS agent who didn't
00:10:33
speak up at the deconfliction meeting regarding the early forum posts he had found to be our Silk Road from someone
00:10:38
going by the username Altoid gary had found out that the forum user named Altoid had registered with email address
00:10:45
Ross Ulbricht at gmail.com but that was quickly deleted and replaced with a fake
00:10:51
email address frosty at frosty calm Gary didn't think that what he had found was important and
00:10:58
he had given up trying to find the Dread Pirate Roberts he decided to stick to what he was supposed to do follow the
00:11:05
money that's why he wanted to get a look at what was on Silk Road server gary entered the office and took a look
00:11:13
around noticing the large piece of paper on the wall like jared heard gary also noticed the words Nomi Toby's San
00:11:21
Francisco he asked Tarbell about it and Tarbell told him the same story he had told Jarrod Gary got a slight chill he
00:11:32
told Tarbell he was looking at someone who was living in San Francisco Tarbell's response didn't impress Gary
00:11:40
Tarbell couldn't have acted any less interested in what he had to say Gary hated the attitude some of the
00:11:47
other people on the case had the fact that was a competition not a joint investigation so we didn't say anything
00:11:54
else he didn't pass on the details of the guy he was looking at in San Francisco if he had Tarbell and Jarrod
00:12:03
would have found out that the guy Gary was looking at in San Francisco was Ross Ulbricht it was around this time that
00:12:15
Ross's ex-girlfriend Julia arranged to meet up with him Ross didn't want to make any mistakes
00:12:21
or mix her up in his fake Joshua Terry identity that he had created for his new roommates so he rented another room in
00:12:28
San Francisco and took her there they spent the night together in the following day Julia went out to explore
00:12:35
San Francisco she returned early and when she entered the apartment she found Ross with his
00:12:42
back to her staring at the computer staring at a page she thought she'd never see again
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silk wrote Ross didn't even hear Julia walk in she took a man before saying hi Ross pressed the kill switch making his
00:13:02
computer shut down instantly and said he was just catching up on some work but Julie had seen all she needed to Ross
00:13:10
and obviously lied to her when he said he had given silk right away and to no longer had anything to do with it she
00:13:17
flew back to Austin soon after that Ross thought it might be time to leave San Francisco and go back to Austin as well
00:13:26
not specifically because of Julia but because too many things had happened while it was in San Francisco including
00:13:33
that visit from Homeland Security so we thought it was time to start somewhere fresh
00:13:41
while Ross was contemplating moving IRS investigator Gary Alford couldn't get him off his mind could Ross be the Dread
00:13:50
Pirate Roberts as detailed in the book American kingpin Gary started talking to a DEA agent in the New York office about
00:14:00
Ross it wasn't the first time the agent had heard Gary's theory and he said you really think you're going to find him
00:14:08
from a Google search Gary nodded I'm right I'm sure of it Gary asked the homeland security officer
00:14:18
to run Ross Ulbricht name he had done this before already but maybe Neil something new would come up well maybe
00:14:25
they would find something they had missed previously the homeland security agent ran Ross's name and told Gary that
00:14:33
Ross had a travel record he'd recently gone to the mini Co which Gary found strange since Dominica and the Caribbean
00:14:41
in general was a place well known for money laundering then the homeland security agents
00:14:47
started to get a bit more excited well there's actually a hit on this guy from a few weeks ago Gary listened intently
00:14:56
as the homeland security agent read the report out loud fake IDs had been confiscated by customs and agents from
00:15:04
homeland security in San Francisco went to the house the IDS were addressed to they spoke to a resident there by the
00:15:10
name of Ross Ulbricht the San Francisco agents noted that Ross's roommates knew him as Joshua Terry not Ross Ulbricht
00:15:18
Ross paid for his room in cash before living at 15th Avenue Ross had lived in Hickory Street in San Francisco central
00:15:27
area the agents notes read Albrecht who generally refused to answer any questions but he volunteered that
00:15:34
hypothetically anyone could go into a website named Silk Road on tour and purchase any drugs or IDs
00:15:43
a children down Gary spine he ran to his supervisors office and screamed it's him
00:15:51
it's him the supervisor asked Gary to come down and explain what was going on Gary did and the supervisor told him to
00:16:00
call sir internal the assistant US attorney that was working with FBI agent Chris Tarbell Gary called Turner and
00:16:07
started giving him an overexcited explanation Turner had to tell him to slow down
00:16:14
Gary told him everything he knew Turner wasn't convinced but said it wouldn't hurt to check and to ask for Ross's
00:16:22
address Gary gave him the Hickory Street address where Ross had lived with his friend Rene when he first moved to San
00:16:29
Francisco Turner punched it straight into Google Maps Turner said holy [ __ ] it's around
00:16:40
the corner from mommy Toby's cafe where we founded the IP address Turner immediately arranged a conference
00:16:47
call with Cristobal Jarod der-yeghiayan into Gary Alfred Gary started from the beginning elaborating on the Google
00:16:56
search had done that led him to the to forum posts from someone called out to it he then went on to say that the user
00:17:02
Altoid had originally registered with an email address Ross Ulbricht at gmail.com
00:17:07
but then deleted that address and entered a fake address frosty frosty calm Tarbell stopped Gary what did you
00:17:17
just say Gary started explaining again until he got to the frosty part and Tarbell interrupted him again
00:17:25
frosty as in Fr Oeste why Gary was starting to get frustrated with the interruptions and said yes frosty with
00:17:34
that spelling what Tarbell answered because when we got the server from Iceland we saw that the
00:17:44
server ended the computer that belonged to the Dread Pirate Roberts were both called frosty the other men stayed
00:17:52
silent on the line as it all sunk in Garry Alfred had found the Dread Pirate Roberts from a google search it took the
00:18:06
agents a little over a week to set up an undercover surveillance team that would
00:18:10
follow raw soul bricks every move their operation resulted in the other agencies
00:18:15
working on a case to immediately stand down the email that was sent to the Baltimore task force instructed them to
00:18:22
cease all activity on the Silk Road case including logging onto Silk Road its forum or any undercover accounts Carl
00:18:31
force panicked when he read the email he'd heard rumors that the FBI might have found the Dread Pirate Roberts but
00:18:38
this confirmed it he knew that if the FBI got into the Dread Pirate Roberts computer that would be the end of him
00:18:46
they would be able to see all of the conversations between the two of them including the conversations Carl deleted
00:18:53
ended the encrypted conversations where he was selling information while pretending to be a corrupt agent named
00:18:58
Kevin Carl immediately sent an encrypted message to the Dread Pirate Roberts warning him that he had been identified
00:19:06
and was about to be caught he added in a threat that it was easy to get people in
00:19:11
jail killed and he had better delete all records of their conversations the FBI kept Ross under surveillance for
00:19:19
two weeks they followed him every minute of the day when he went out for a walk or spent on
00:19:25
with friends or went to a cafe they were watching when Ross was seen on his laptop the Dread Pirate Roberts was
00:19:33
logged into Silk Road and when Ross closed his laptop it was the exact same tone the Dread Pirate Roberts logged out
00:19:39
of Silk Road the agents had no doubt Ross Ulbricht was the men they were looking for they scheduled the arrest
00:19:47
that take place on October 1st 2013 agent Cristobal flew to San Francisco a few days prior to join the team on the
00:19:56
ground and to make sure everything was ready when Tarbell landed in San Francisco
00:20:01
he realized there was a problem and he called Jarod der-yeghiayan to join him Jared was back in Chicago
00:20:08
still pretending to be Silk Road employee a Cirrus when he found out he was needed in San Francisco he arranged
00:20:15
for another homeland security agent to pose as cirrus while he was on the plane Jared then logged back in a Cirrus when
00:20:21
he landed in San Francisco as soon as Jared landed he met with agent Cristobal and two other men one of them was named
00:20:29
Brophy a special agent with the FBI in New York and in the other men was Thomas Keenan the computer scientists from the
00:20:36
FBI cybercrime division Keenan was there to take care of Russell laptop after the
00:20:43
arrest it was imperative that the laptop stayed open and powered on information like Ross posting on forums about Silk
00:20:51
Road and logging on to his computer at the exact same time as the Dread Pirate Roberts logged onto Silk Road would be
00:20:58
worth nothing without the contents of his computer a lawyer could easily argue that was all
00:21:04
nothing more than a coincidence into the fact the FBI needed Ross's laptop to make a case was part of the problem
00:21:11
Tarbell was now facing Tarbell explained that the team responsible for the arrest
00:21:17
wouldn't be the FBI teams from New York that would be a local team from San Francisco although the FBI investigation
00:21:25
was conducted in the New York office when it came to arrests there was a matter of jurisdiction that had to be
00:21:31
respected so because Ross was in San Francisco the San Francisco team would make the arrest the problem being the
00:21:40
San Francisco team won't part of the investigation they didn't know much about Ross or the Dread Pirate Roberts
00:21:45
and who weren't fully aware of the implications if they didn't get access to his laptop all the San Francisco team
00:21:52
knew was that Ross was considered extremely dangerous they had seen the chat logs from the server where he
00:21:58
ordered the murders of Curtis green-friendly chemist Tony 76 and Tony's three partners so because of that
00:22:06
the San Francisco team was going to arrest him with the assistance of a SWAT team SWAT art known for entering places
00:22:16
quietly and if Ross heard them coming it would give him time to press the kill switch on his laptop completely shutting
00:22:23
it down meaning if his encryption was done right it would be impossible for the FBI to
00:22:28
get the evidence they needed they had to catch him with his laptop open while he
00:22:33
was locked onto Silk Road Tarbell explained he was trying to talk the local office out of using SWAT but
00:22:41
it wasn't going well he then he outlined another concern DEA agent Carl force from Baltimore had phoned him and
00:22:49
demanded access to Silk Road server Tarbell told Carl he had to go through the proper channels and get
00:22:56
authorization Carl said he had authorization but after a few questions from turbo it was clear he didn't both
00:23:06
Tarbell and jared agreed carl force looked more suspicious by the day their suspicions were correct Carl had made
00:23:14
that phone call only minutes after he sent the threatening message to the Dread Pirate Roberts about being able to
00:23:19
have people killed in jail Carl was trying to get access to the server to see if he could get rid of any
00:23:25
incriminating evidence against him the following day October 1st 2013 Agent Tarbell's request to make the arrest
00:23:37
without swattin was officially denied the local office explained that the Dread Pirate Roberts was considered
00:23:44
dangerous and they wouldn't risk losing an agent over a laptop table l tried arguing that in this case the laptop was
00:23:52
almost as important as the life of an agent but they weren't having it they were using SWAT and that was final the
00:24:00
arrest was scheduled to happen in Ross's apartment with the help of the SWAT team
00:24:04
the following day October 2nd but agents are bill Jarod der-yeghiayan and Thomas
00:24:10
Keenan came up with a new point one without SWAT the three of them were gathered outside
00:24:17
a cafe called Bello located about a five-minute walk from Ross's apartment they weren't the only agents there
00:24:23
either there were several agents spread out around the area in case Ross walked out of his apartment their new plan was
00:24:31
to try and arrest Ross in a public area they thought that if they could get Ross
00:24:35
using public Wi-Fi and at the same time they could get Jared chatting with him while he was posing as Silk Road
00:24:41
employee Cirrus then there would be no denying that Ross was the Dread Pirate Roberts Ross had visited the Bello cafe
00:24:50
only the day before so they hope you'd reappear there again they waited anxiously praying he would show up the
00:24:59
time was 1:00 p.m. Jared was watching the screen of his laptop keeping an eye on the Dread Pirate Roberts who was
00:25:09
connected to the staff chat of Silk Road but at 2:47 p.m. the Dread Pirate Roberts signed out of the chat Jarret
00:25:18
checked his battery level it was down to 18 percent since the Dread Pirate Roberts was no longer online Jared made
00:25:25
his way inside the Bello cafe to charge his computer the cafe was jammed packed with people the Jared managed to find an
00:25:33
open power point it was the only one available he started charging his computer and was planning on ordering a
00:25:41
coffee when Tarbell stormed into the cafe and told him Ross had left his apartment and was currently walking in
00:25:47
their direction Jared quickly removed his computer from the PowerPoint left the coffee shop and
00:25:53
made his way across the street he sat on a bench next to computer scientist Thomas Keenan both agents pretended to
00:26:01
be busy on their devices while they waited for an update on Ross's location they soon got it Ross turned up to the
00:26:10
Bello cafe just as they had hoped jared watched as ross entered the cafe and then cursed under his breath when
00:26:19
Ross walked out only 30 seconds later jared noir in chats with his employees the Dread Pirate Roberts had instructed
00:26:28
them never to access Silk Road in a place where someone could look over their shoulder the cafe was packed so it
00:26:34
was too dangerous for Ross to log on Ross turned right and kept going until he found the next available place
00:26:41
that had Wi-Fi the Glen Park library the moment Ross walked into the library computer scientist Thomas Kean and
00:26:54
followed him he had been instructed to keep an eye on Ross's computer at all times so he took up a position inside
00:27:01
undercover surveillance agents had already followed Rossi in as well agents arbel sat down next to Jared outside the
00:27:08
library Jared was keeping a close eye on his laptop waiting for the Dread Pirate
00:27:13
Roberts to reconnect to the staff chat on Silk Road Thabo had given strict instructions to all of the other agents
00:27:21
present to wait for Jarrett to get chatting with the Dread Pirate Roberts on the Silk Road employee chat before
00:27:27
anyone made a move against him Jared kept looking at the screen anxiously minutes seemed like hours until finally
00:27:39
at 3:08 p.m. the Dread Pirate Roberts reconnected to the Silk Road staff chat Jarrett took his opportunity and using
00:27:49
the Silk Road employee account of Cirrus that he had taken over he typed hi but there was no response jarred kept
00:28:00
looking at the screen waiting after one minute passed he tried again are you there
00:28:09
30 long seconds ticket by the Dread Pirate Roberts responded hey Jarrett talked how are you doing
00:28:20
the Dread Pirate Roberts answered on ok you Jarrod said good can you check out one of the flagged messages for me
00:28:32
Jarrod knew that the Dread Pirate Roberts could only access the flagged messages from the main administrator
00:28:38
section of Silk Road otherwise known as the mastermind section if they caught Ross in that part of the site that was
00:28:45
game over as only the Dread Pirate Roberts could access it another long minute passed before the
00:28:52
Dread Pirate Roberts he answered sure let me login but before he logged in he sent his test question like he did with
00:29:03
all of his employees only the Dread Pirate Roberts and the employee knew the answer to the question it was a security
00:29:10
measure to make sure it was really Ben if Jared gave the wrong answer the Dread Pirate Roberts would shut down the
00:29:18
account the Dread Pirate Roberts typed you did Bitcoin exchange before he started
00:29:26
working for me right the real Cirrus had told Jared what the answer to the question was when Jared
00:29:33
took over her account but in this high-pressure moment he was struggling to remember it Jared
00:29:41
tentatively replied yes but just for a little bit the Dread Pirate Roberts responded not any more than that Jared
00:29:52
no I stopped because of the reporting requirements sweat poured off Jared time seemed to stand still had he gotten it
00:30:05
right or had he just blown the investigation it seemed like an eternity before the
00:30:11
Dread Pirate Roberts responded okay which post Jared knew this was it the Dread Pirate Roberts was exactly
00:30:22
where they needed him to be in the mastermind section he signaled to Chris Tarbell to go Tarbell gave the order
00:30:31
Paul Ross's laptop first and then make the arrest we hope you're enjoying today's episode
00:30:52
we'll be back shortly support for case file comes from audible who proudly presents West Cork this
00:31:00
year's first not-to-be-missed true-crime audio series here's what we know days before Christmas in 1996 so
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fetus gone deployed ta was beaten to death outside her weekend home in the Irish countryside the tangled
00:31:15
investigation to find her killer shook a small Irish community to its core and consumed to the lives of those in its
00:31:21
path in to 21 years later the rest remains a mystery join the hunt for the truth in this original true crime audio
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series free for a limited time only on audible listen now at audible.com slash West Cork this 13-part series will give
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you unprecedented access to all the K players including an embattled prime suspect who has never been brought to
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trial listen now at audible.com slash West Cork at 3:15 p.m. inside the library Ross was staring at his computer when he
00:32:07
heard a loud scream coming from behind him the scream was from a woman she yelled [ __ ] you Tom Ian standing by her
00:32:15
side Ross was startled and turned around to see what was going on the man had his
00:32:21
fist raised and was about to punch the woman but the punch never came Ross was confused and turned back to his
00:32:29
laptop but it wasn't there the man and woman pretending to argue we're FBI agents they took Ross by the
00:32:38
arms and screamed at him to stay still another agent and taken Ross's computer away from him while he was distracted by
00:32:44
the fake argument agent Brophy appeared and handcuffed Ross then he made him stand up and walk
00:32:51
to the door of the library where Tarbell and Jared were waiting Tarbell and jared
00:32:56
escorted Ross outside the library and Ross asked what he was being charged with Tarbell held up a piece of paper
00:33:04
United States of America versus Ross William ohlbrecht aka Dread Pirate Roberts aka DPO aka Silk Road Jaron left
00:33:19
Ross with Tarbell and returned to the library he saw that Ross was logged into the
00:33:24
main administrator section of Silk Road the Silk Road support page and torture were open as well which showed the
00:33:30
conversation Jared had just been having with him through Cyrus's accountant Thomas Kean and carefully carried the
00:33:37
laptop out of the library and into a waiting vehicle he had to make sure the laptop remained on at all times so as he
00:33:44
sat with it in the car he moved his finger on the mousepad regularly so it was never out of
00:33:49
activity Keenan was driven to a special van that was a mobile computer forensics
00:33:54
lab he started going through Ross's laptop with another computer expert one of the first things they did was look
00:34:02
for any traps like a kill switch the agents checked carefully and over the next 10 hours the laptops contents
00:34:11
were backed up six times FBI agents conducted a thorough search of rasa's apartment they found two thumb
00:34:19
drives on his bedside table and two pieces of paper in the garbage can which showed that Ross had been designing a
00:34:25
new rating system for Silk Road the note sent cryptic they included different key
00:34:30
words and ideas for the rating system when the agents matched up these notes for several foreign posts from the Dread
00:34:36
Pirate Roberts discussing the new rating system every keyword matched news of the
00:34:47
arrests broke immediately the FBI announced that they believed Silk Road had turned over 1.2 billion dollars in
00:34:53
revenue with Ross alone pocketing 80 million dollars in commissions in the two years and ten months the site had
00:34:59
been running the story of the former Eagle Scout turned crime kingpin made headlines around the world those who
00:35:07
were close to Ross couldn't believe it his family denied the allegations saying Ross wasn't capable of doing what the
00:35:14
FBI were alleging his roommates in San Francisco the place Ross found on Craigslist and paid for in cash got a
00:35:22
shock when they saw the front page of the paper Ross Ulbricht he looks a lot like our old roommate Joshua Terry they
00:35:31
had to do a double and triple take it was him Ross hired lawyer Joshua J toll to
00:35:39
represent him he was offered a plate deal before the case went to trial plead guilty and served 10 years to life but
00:35:47
he refused it there were seven charges in total narcotics trafficking distribution of narcotics by means of
00:35:56
the internet and conspiracy to traffic narcotics which all carried a sentence of 10 years to life running a continual
00:36:04
criminal enterprise commonly known as the kingpin Church which carried a sentence of 20 years to life they could
00:36:11
actually result in the death penalty if it was proven the person charged had committed murder
00:36:16
the remaining three charges were computer hacking money-laundering and trafficking false documents the three of
00:36:23
those charges have put together could lead to a sentence of 40 years to life the one thing that Ross wasn't charged
00:36:32
with was murder the charges were considered since they found the chat logs where the Dread
00:36:37
Pirate Roberts ordered hits on six different individuals but they knew the hit on Curtis green never actually
00:36:42
happened that had been faked and when the FBI searched for the real identities of friendly chemist Tony 76 and Tony's
00:36:52
three partners they couldn't find anything no murders on their database matched to
00:36:58
the dates and times that hits allegedly took place the more they look into it the more it seemed that no murders ever
00:37:05
took place at all and Ross had paid a total of seven hundred and thirty thousand dollars for six murders that
00:37:11
were never committed but he thought they had he had received the pictures of what
00:37:17
he thought were dead people has proof the hits had taken place he just didn't realize they were faked Ross had been
00:37:27
found with his computer open on Silk Road but he believed that's all the FBI had he had encrypted the rest of his
00:37:33
files his diary his chat logs the photographs have all he thought were dead bodies from the hits and many other
00:37:39
files they were all encrypted with a password that Ross believed the FBI would never find
00:37:46
but Thomas Keenan and his associate found the password hidden in the rim of Russ's laptop the password was purple
00:37:54
orange beach that password unlocked everything on Ross's computer the FBI had at all
00:38:02
Ross hadn't been as careful as he thought Ross's trial started On January 13 2015 at lasted three weeks in total
00:38:17
Ross had a lot of people on his side he didn't just have his family and friends but many other people who subscribed to
00:38:24
his beliefs and defended him saying all he did was run a website and if that was
00:38:29
to be considered a crime than the CEOs of large websites such as eBay and Craigslist should be considered
00:38:35
criminals as well they were painful it's all over the stairs of the federal courthouse with people rallying for Ross
00:38:43
leading the prosecution was sarin Turner the assistant US attorney who had worked
00:38:48
so closely with agent turbo or during the investigation he explained to the jury how all the technology worked and
00:38:56
he showed them the chat logs between the Dread Pirate Roberts and several employees and users including all the
00:39:02
chats with variety Jones in one chat log variety Jones promised he would get the
00:39:08
Dread Pirate Roberts out of prison was ever caught because with the amount of money they were generating he would
00:39:13
be able to hire a small country - breaking me up but variety Jones wasn't coming to help when Joshua dray tells
00:39:24
turn came to present Ross aside the defense he used was that Ross wasn't the Dread Pirate Roberts he had given the
00:39:31
sight away Jay Tell admitted Ross was the creator of Silk Road but in November 2011 when Ross told his original
00:39:40
programmer Richard that he'd given the site away Jay tell claimed he had actually done it the site had proven to
00:39:47
be too stressful and he didn't want to have anything to do with it anymore after he gave it away he headed to
00:39:53
Australia with his sister and tried to forget about it Jay tell said the Dread Pirate Roberts
00:39:59
first appeared after Ross had already given the site away so everything that happened after that had nothing to do
00:40:05
with Ross he had no knowledge of it the evidence the FBI found on Ross's laptop was all planted by the real Dread Pirate
00:40:12
Roberts Ross had been hacked into the evidence planted the framing the book American kingpin by Nick Bilton
00:40:22
highlights some of the key arguments and quotes within the courtroom sir internal
00:40:28
quote his conduct was brazenly illegal he knew perfectly well what he was doing the whole time he built it he grew it he
00:40:38
operated it from top to bottom until the very end and then there is the defendants attempt
00:40:43
to explain away mountains of evidence on his computer it's a hacker it's a virus
00:40:48
it's ludicrous there were no little elves that put all of that evidence on the defendants computer he knew
00:40:55
perfectly well what he was doing the whole time and you should find him guilty on all counts
00:41:02
Joshua trait L quote one of the fundamental principles in this case is the Dread Pirate Roberts
00:41:10
and mr. Albrecht cannot be the same person saving those chats does that sound like Dread Pirate Roberts you have
00:41:18
to actually enable the chats to be saved keeping a journal like that and then saving it on your laptop a little too
00:41:25
convenient there are a lot of blinking neon signs in this case that have been created to incriminate mr. Albrecht it's
00:41:33
not the same person the internet is not what it seems you can create an entire fiction I'm confident in deliberations
00:41:42
you will reach only one conclusion Ross Ulbricht is not guilty on every count in
00:41:47
the indictment it was great Elle's argument that the FBI hadn't caught the Dread Pirate
00:41:54
Roberts so they settled on Ross because they needed to catch someone he even hinted that the authorities had
00:42:01
something to do with the frame as they were under pressure to solve the case but the jury didn't buy it
00:42:07
Ross Ulbricht was found guilty before sentencing judge Katherine Forrest didn't have an easy Tolin she received a
00:42:20
huge amount of letters pleading to give Ross a life sentence the letter spoke of
00:42:25
his character and how he was such an incredible person and a role model Ross himself wrote a letter to the judge
00:42:32
saying that he now understood the firsthand that jail was a hard place to live but what hurt him the most was the
00:42:38
pain he was causing his family he also mentioned that when he started Silk Road he had been naive and he now regretted
00:42:45
his actions he ended the letter with I've had my youth and I know you must take away my middle years but please
00:42:53
leave me in my old age please leave a small light at the end of the tunnel an excuse to stay healthy an excuse to
00:43:00
dream of better days ahead and a chance to redeem myself in the free world before I meet my Maker
00:43:08
it wasn't just messages of support for Ross that the judge received she also received the very public threat someone
00:43:17
published her home address and personal information online along with a comment that read [ __ ] this stupid [ __ ] I hope
00:43:25
some drug cartel that lost a lot of money with a seizure of the Silk Road will murder this lady and her entire
00:43:30
family the threat didn't stop judge Forrest from handing down Ross's sentence on May 29 2015
00:43:41
quote you were the captain of the ship as the Dread Pirate Roberts and you made your own laws and you enforce those laws
00:43:50
in a manner that useful fit it was in fact a carefully planned life's work it was your opus you wanted it to be your
00:43:59
legacy and it is after that she addressed a point Russ's lawyer had raised he presented a research paper to
00:44:09
the court about drug distribution suggesting that Silk Road could be better for society because it would
00:44:14
reduce violence and it would also encourage the sale of better quality drugs judge Forrest quote no drug dealer
00:44:24
from the Bronx selling meth or heroin or crack has ever made this kind of argument to the court it is a privileged
00:44:31
argument you were no better a person than any other drug dealer and your education does not give you a special
00:44:37
place of privilege in our criminal justice system then she addressed the murders for hire the Ross had ordered
00:44:45
she stated that although no bodies were found it didn't really matter because Ross had paid for the murders and he had
00:44:52
gotten photographs of what he thought were dead bodies so as far as Ross was concerned those murders did happen this
00:45:01
is a heated point of contention Ross never faced trial for the murders so the argument is they should never have been
00:45:08
mentioned in these capes the prosecution and the judge were using the murders for hire to make the case
00:45:15
against Ross look much worse but that's not what he was charged with judge Forrest finished with quote there is no
00:45:25
reason for me to make a choice between these two people that I see that are on display the ohlbrecht who is the leader
00:45:32
of the criminal enterprise and the ohlbrecht who is known and loved what is clear is that people are very very
00:45:40
complex and you're one of them there is good in you mr. Albrecht I have no doubt
00:45:46
but there is also bad in what you did in connection with Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric mr.
00:45:56
Albrecht it is my judgment delivered here now on behalf of our country that you were sentenced to a period of life
00:46:03
imprisonment in the federal system there is no parole and you shall serve your life in prison nobody was able to
00:46:22
believe the sentence given to Ross it was actually above and beyond what the prosecution requested he supporters and
00:46:29
especially his mother Lynn had created an ongoing campaign to free him as started almost as soon as Ross was
00:46:35
arrested the campaign carried the name free Ross and has an official website at free Ross org you know Lynn has uploaded
00:46:44
and shared everything related to the case she continues to speak out publicly about what she believes was an unfair
00:46:50
arrest and unfair trial and a severely excessive sentence from the moment Ross was arrested on October 1st 2013 the
00:47:00
government acted poorly and suspiciously in the eyes of Ross's supporters for starters after his arrest he was
00:47:07
kept in solitary confinement for six weeks and to neither Ross nor his family were informed as to why he was only
00:47:15
permitted to leave solitary confinement during his bail hearing various members of his family and supporters offered
00:47:22
every economic resource they had including their own homes to bail Rossi out they also wrote a lot of letters to
00:47:28
the judge about his good character but it was all in vain Ross wasn't given bail because he was considered a
00:47:36
dangerous individual due to the murder-for-hire allegations two months after the bail hearing the
00:47:42
murder-for-hire charges were officially dropped the bail was still denied in preparation for the trial more problems
00:47:51
arose Ross was given permission by the court to help his attorneys review the evidence against him however the
00:47:58
evidence against him equalled six terabytes or 2.5 billion single-spaced pages and for long periods of time he
00:48:05
was not given either a laptop or software to review the evidence in the trial itself two important witnesses
00:48:13
from the defense weren't allowed to take the stand one of them was Andre Assante
00:48:17
innopolis a Bitcoin expert and the other was Stephen pehlivan a computer networking and security expert from
00:48:24
Columbia University both men are very well known in their fields the defense wanted Antonopoulos
00:48:32
to give a real and clear view of how Bitcoin works since it's a complicated matter and it was likely few of the
00:48:38
jurors if any had any idea about it in Bellavance case the defense wanted him to explain how the FBI's version of
00:48:47
how they found Silk Road server sounded a bit too good to be true the FBI's version was challenged by
00:48:54
various security experts and the defense wanted to explore further but neither Antonopoulos nor bail oven
00:49:01
were allowed to testify the judge stated both witnesses were unnecessary but the
00:49:07
government was allowed to call their Bitcoin expert one who worked as a consultant for the FBI and was paid to
00:49:13
take the stand Christabel who had led Ross's arrest and their discovery of the Silk Road server
00:49:21
never took the stand furthermore there was an entire new revelation about Jarod der-yeghiayan investigation thirteen
00:49:31
days before the trial began the defense was provided with five thousand pages of
00:49:36
the investigation Jared had conducted within those pages Jared had actually named somebody else who he thought could
00:49:43
be the Dread Pirate Roberts this other suspect was around Ross's age had operated as a Bitcoin launderer had a
00:49:51
computer programming background was a computer systems developer and had operated different websites including
00:49:58
Bitcoin talk the forum where one of the first posts promoting Silk Road appeared
00:50:03
other agents had spoken to this suspect and he allegedly offered to give them the name of the real Dread Pirate
00:50:08
Roberts if they left him alone there was a few weeks later the Ross Ulbricht was
00:50:13
arrested the defense wanted to explore this further and on the third day of the trial joshua trade tell Ross's lawyer
00:50:22
started cross-examining Jared about his other suspect but he was stopped before he could really start Saren Turner from
00:50:31
the prosecution objected to any line of questioning that led down the path of another Dread Pirate Roberts he argued
00:50:38
that the whole point of the trial was that Ross was the Dread Pirate Roberts the court was adjourned for a couple of
00:50:44
days to enable a decision to be made when the trial resumed the judge agreed with the prosecution and any questioning
00:50:52
on Jared's other suspect all in all roses mum win states that the government conducted a very controlled narrative
00:51:04
before throughout and after the trial she said the facts presented were very carefully selected to tell the story the
00:51:11
government wanted to tell injustice had been far from served recently in an interview Ling gave with daily coined
00:51:19
org she said this about the justice system quote I have been absolutely shocked at how
00:51:27
I've seen it operate in this case and of course in many others and so I had my eyes opened over and over again and I
00:51:34
feel like what I've seen is so really concerning and frightened that everyone should care because our justice system
00:51:40
is so broken and so our constitutional protections are being eroded and there's so much unfairness that it really is
00:51:47
shocking and I've become a lot more skeptical and a lot more outraged not only for Ross but for so many Ross was
00:51:59
actually sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment without parole and was given 40 years on top as well what Lynn
00:52:07
and Ross's supporters consider most unfair is that the sentencing is based primarily on the fact that he ran Silk
00:52:13
Road hence he's taking the blame for all of the crimes others committed inside Silk Road consider his sentence to
00:52:22
infamous serial killer and the cult leader Charles Manson Manson and other members of the Manson family at least
00:52:28
were able to apply for parole Ross will never have that chance Ross's computer contained a large amount
00:52:36
of evidence but to this day some question if all that evidence truly belonged to him some still firmly
00:52:43
believe he was framed by the real Dread Pirate Roberts and there are others who feel that even if all the evidence was
00:52:50
his it was obtained illegally one of the main points made by the defense was that
00:52:56
no proper warrants were granted before searching inside Ross's computer which was a violation of his Fourth Amendment
00:53:02
rights however the judge ruled that there were proper warrants in place and his Fourth Amendment rights were not
00:53:08
infringed the appeal judges agreed with the trial judge on this point apart from the chat
00:53:17
logs of the Dread Pirate Roberts his personal diary and catching Ross red-handed in the mastermind section of
00:53:23
Silk Road they also found a lot of money on Ross's computer he had 144 thousand bitcoins
00:53:30
worth close to around 20 million dollars at the time of his arrest these were optioned off by the US
00:53:37
government and by the time the option was hold the price of Bitcoin had gone up so they were able to get 50 million
00:53:47
the FBI also found a folder that contained all the process employee IDs that he kept as part of his security
00:53:53
measures one of those IDs belonged to Roger Thomas Clark a 54 year old Canadian men the FBI Homeland Security
00:54:03
in the DEA believe Roger Thomas Clark is variety Jones they tracked him down hiding out in a hotel room in Thailand
00:54:11
he was arrested and he's still being held in Thailand awaiting extradition to the United States where he's expected to
00:54:18
face trial for narcotics trafficking in the money-laundering in total more than 100 people were arrested in 43 different
00:54:27
countries who are they the board or sold from Silk Road or worked for Silk Road Curtis green who Ross paid knob to kill
00:54:35
was facing up to 40 years in prison however the judge took into account that Curtis was tortured and had a murder
00:54:42
faked by government officials so he gave him a sentence of time served Curtis now
00:54:48
sells Silk Road hurts t-shirts and his writing and memoir about his time as a Silk Road employee as for Carl force the
00:54:58
Baltimore DEA agent who posed as not on Silk Road he was given an award for his work on the case Carl even thought about
00:55:07
going in the same direction as Curtis and contacted book publishers and studios in Hollywood he wanted to sell
00:55:13
the story of the DEA agent who helped bring down Silk Road but it wasn't long before things started falling apart for
00:55:20
Carl the FBI I entered the IRS been tracing the bitcoins that had entered and left Silk Road they found
00:55:28
that some bitcoins went straight into an account owned by Carl force they started
00:55:34
an undercover investigation on him and they began finding other things they found especially incriminating messages
00:55:40
to the Dread Pirate Roberts from someone under the pseudonym French made French made was another identity Carl had
00:55:48
created he had done it shortly before Ross's arrest under the French made account Carl told the Dread Pirate
00:55:55
Roberts he had information he would want to hear for that information Carl asked
00:56:00
for $100,000 and Ross paid it but Carl made a big error in the messages under the French made account he signed off
00:56:10
using his real name Carl he realized this error and sent another message saying his real name was Carla but he
00:56:18
was fooling no one after investigating further they eventually uncovered all of the other encrypted and deleted messages
00:56:26
Carl had sent the Dread Pirate Roberts under his other account names of nob and Kevin in total from the fake murder hit
00:56:34
and the information he sold about the case Carl had pocketed seven hundred and fifty seven thousand dollars Carl
00:56:42
surrendered and pled guilty to the charges he was sentenced to six and a half years in federal prison he wasn't
00:56:50
the only one involved in the investigation who was up to no good either Secret Service agent Shawn
00:56:55
bridges who Carl had teamed up with at one point had stolen big coins as well Ross had been wrong all along he ordered
00:57:04
the hit on the wrong person Curtis Green wasn't the one who stole three hundred and fifty thousand dollars
00:57:10
worth of bitcoins from him it was Sean Bridges who stole them during the arrest of Curtis green bridges saw that Curtis
00:57:18
had access to many users bitcoins when no one was watching bridges redirected three hundred and fifty thousand dollars
00:57:25
worth into an account with a fake business name bridges actually returned to Curtis as computer install even more
00:57:33
money after that the FBI eventually found that these missing bitcoins pointed to bridges so they started an
00:57:40
undercover investigation on him as well bridges found out about the investigation and he had a fake passport
00:57:47
and a bulletproof vest on him when he was arrested trying to leave the country bridges pled guilty to the charges in
00:57:54
total he had stolen over eight hundred thousand dollars he was given a sentence of close to six years
00:58:02
as for Gary Alfred who's Google searchers found the Dread Pirate Roberts he still works for the IRS and after the
00:58:10
Silk Road case he was given an award which he keeps on his desk it reads the Sherlock Holmes of cyberspace FBI agent
00:58:21
Christabel left the FBI after someone posted all of his personal information online in retaliation for his work on
00:58:27
the case his home address and his children's school address were posted he now works for a cyber consultancy
00:58:35
company where he assists the government and businesses on cyber related crimes on November 6 2013 just one month after
00:58:47
Ross's arrest Silk Road 2.0 opened for business a moderator from the original Silk Road site posted the following
00:58:55
announcement taken from the book silk wrote by Arlene Hornsby ladies and gentlemen I would like to announce our
00:59:03
new home as I've always stated even with Silk Road itself you should act at all times as though any site or marketplace
00:59:10
you visit has been compromised from the very beginning that is the only way to ensure that you do not become relaxed
00:59:17
with your security do not fall into a false sense of security at any time on any site do not get comfortable when you
00:59:25
get comfortable you get confident when you get confident you get cocky and when you get cocky you get caught with the
00:59:33
necessary security warnings out of the way I look forward to seeing you all over and then you saw it
00:59:39
let law-enforcement waste their time and resources whilst we make a statement to
00:59:44
the world that we will not only our jackbooted government thugs trample our freedom we are born free yet moments
00:59:50
later we are shackled by the rule of law it is time once again to break free of those shackles
00:59:59
in the beginning Silk Road 2.0 was the answer for all those who missed the original Silk Road there were even some
01:00:06
of the same moderators but it didn't last long some of the moderators were arrested and Silk Road 2.0 was shut down
01:00:15
then Silk Road 3.0 appeared a number of other black-market websites also appeared under various names but there
01:00:24
are those who feel these sites are nothing more than scams or law enforcement traps in May 2017 bross lost
01:00:33
an appeal against his life sentence one of the judges on the three-judge panel said this quote reasonable people may
01:00:42
and do disagree about the social utility of harsh sentences for the distribution
01:00:46
of controlled substances or even of criminal prohibition of their sale and use at all it is very possible that at
01:00:54
some future point we will come to regard these policies as tragic mistakes and adopt a less punitive and more effective
01:01:00
methods of reducing the incidence and costs of drug use at this point in our history however the democratically
01:01:08
elected representatives of the people have opted for a policy of prohibition backed by severe punishment courts have
01:01:15
the power to condemn a young men to die in prison and judges must exercise that power only in a small number of cases
01:01:22
after the deepest thought into reflection although we might not have imposed the same sentence ourselves in
01:01:29
the first instance on the facts of this case our life sentence was within the range of permissible decisions
01:01:39
in March 2012 Ross Ulbricht aka the Dread Pirate Roberts wrote the following post on the Silk Road forums
01:01:49
someday we could be a shining beacon of hope for the oppressed people of the world just as so many oppressed and
01:01:56
violated souls have found refuge here already will it happen overnight no will it happen in a lifetime I don't know is
01:02:06
it worth fighting for until my last breath of course once you've seen what's possible how can you do otherwise how
01:02:15
can you plug yourself into their tax ceding life sucking violent sadistic war mongering oppressive machine ever again
01:02:23
how can you knew when you felt the power of your own legs felt them stretch and flex as you learn to walk and think as a
01:02:31
free person I would rather live my life in rags now than in golden chains and now we can have both now it is
01:02:40
profitable to throw off one's chains with amazing crypto technology reducing the risk of doing so dramatically
01:02:46
how many nations have yet to be filled in the world of anonymous online markets the opportunity to prosper and take part
01:02:54
in a revolution of epic proportions is at our fingertips [Music] judge Katherine Forrest during the
01:03:02
sentencing of Ross Ulbricht aka the Dread Pirate Roberts on make this judgement mindful of the crimes that you
01:03:10
have committed and their needs for the severus possible penalty to be imposed there must be no doubt that lawlessness
01:03:17
will not be tolerated there must be no doubt that no one is above the law no matter the education or the privileges
01:03:24
all stand equal before the law there must be no doubt that you cannot run a massive criminal enterprise and because
01:03:31
it occurred over the Internet minimize the crime committed on that basis for those considering stepping
01:03:38
into your shoes carrying some flag some misguided flag or doing something similar they need to understand very
01:03:46
clearly and without equivocation that if you break the law this way there will be
01:03:52
very very severe consequences [Music] you [Music]