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that's harrys.com slash case file [Music] our episodes deal with serious and often
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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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phone numbers for confidential support please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website
00:02:14
when Ross Ulbricht aka Dread Pirate Roberts got the offer from a new user named not to start a new site called
00:02:22
masters of the Silk Road for major dealers he was already having his own discussions with variety Jones about
00:02:28
different ways they could expand some ideas they had were silk digital which would sell downloadable products like
00:02:35
stolen software and hacking software silk farmer was another idea which would focus on prescription medication and
00:02:42
last but not least the armory guns had created problems on Silk Road ever since they first appeared a large part of the
00:02:52
community weren't happy that guns were for sale as detailed in the book Silk Road by Alain Ormsby one user stated
00:03:00
while I support the right of someone being able to have a single shotgun for self-defense
00:03:04
I'm not comfortable with the idea of automatic and semi-automatic weapons being made available to anyone with the
00:03:10
money to buy them just because we support the rights of people to put what they like in their own bodies doesn't
00:03:16
mean that we are evil people in spite of what the government would often have the
00:03:19
general public believe Nepal was created titled would you like to see the sale of
00:03:26
guns removed from the Silk Road the vote was split at around fifty-fifty many used the started adopting a signature
00:03:35
under their posts that read no guns on Silk Road even Tony 76 the former respected seller who had played the
00:03:43
great 420 sale scam stated that guns would be the downfall of Silk Road he said it would bring unwanted attention
00:03:49
from law enforcement author Nick Bilton outlines in the book American kingpin that variety Jones had
00:03:57
tried to warn Ross that guns were not a good idea for business at first as was his nature variety Jones said it in a
00:04:04
sarcastic and almost joking way the way he put it was that it was better to remove the guns so grandma can come here
00:04:11
for her trip Canadian farmer meds and to not trip over a Glock nine millimeter then variety Jones became more direct
00:04:19
with Ross and told him guns would scare off a lot of clients that's why they started discussing the possibility of
00:04:25
opening up a separate site for guns so the complaints from Silk Road users would stop the first option they had in
00:04:33
mind was to name the site Silk armory to continue on with the silk brand a variety Jones said it didn't sound right
00:04:39
so they settled for the armory Ross used code and programming from Silk Road to make the new website he made a new logo
00:04:49
which was the letter A with wings once they launched the armory they realized that the implications of having a
00:04:56
website for weapons were a lot more complicated than having a website for drugs with Silk Road drugs could easily
00:05:03
be shipped through the mail and sellers constantly thought of new ways to stay ahead so the drugs wouldn't be detected
00:05:10
the shipping guns was a different matter altogether it wasn't that easy two hot guns in the mail Ross considered this
00:05:18
and posted it on his Facebook wall asking if anyone knew someone who worked in the shipping sector one of his
00:05:24
friends on Facebook asked why and Ross answered that he had a new startup idea Ross and variety Jones knew they were a
00:05:33
target for law enforcement but the reality was they had no idea if they were on anyone's radar or not at that
00:05:39
point just to be safe variety Jones decided he would had the Toyland where he said he had hidden before and where
00:05:47
he had dirty cops working for him Ross decided to lay Austin too he moved to San Francisco he had been contemplating
00:06:00
a move for a while and coincidentally a friend of his Renee asked him to move to
00:06:05
San Francisco with him Renee said they could work on building a startup business together
00:06:10
and Ross could stay in the apartment with he and his girlfriend Ross accepted but before leaving he had
00:06:17
to have another discussion with his ex-girlfriend Julia Ross had told his old programming friend Richard that he
00:06:25
sold Silk Road and no longer had anything to do with it but he hadn't had that discussion with Julia yet so Ross
00:06:32
message Julia through Facebook and arranged a meeting Ross asked her if she'd told anyone else about this I and
00:06:38
apart from Erica Julia apologized again forever telling Erica to begin with and assured him that she hadn't told anyone
00:06:45
else then Ross told her that he'd given Silk Road away that had caused him too much stress and the only reason he kept
00:06:55
it for so long was because he liked the power that came with it but now he was finished someone else was running it
00:07:04
Julia believed his law and to thank him for giving it up Ross said they probably
00:07:10
wouldn't be seeing each other again for a long time because he was leaving town and that was that in the summer of 2012
00:07:18
Ross left for San Francisco almost as soon as Ross arrived in San Francisco he had an altercation with Variety Jones it
00:07:29
wasn't their first altercation either they previously had a disagreement over the great 4/20 sale and giveaway the
00:07:35
person who won the prize had bought a lot of heroin and practically overdosed on it variety Jones didn't think it was
00:07:42
a good idea giving him the money for the prize as he was trying to get clean but
00:07:46
Ross laughed it off and said they should give away a price to rehab for the next
00:07:50
contest they also had a disagreement over the selling of heroin itself variety James hated heroin and he didn't
00:07:58
want to profit off of it but Ross saw things differently believing it wasn't up to him to stop someone from doing
00:08:04
what they wanted to do but their latest argument was a more significant one variety Jones wanted co-ownership of
00:08:13
Silk Road he said they could do things one of two ways they said they went 5050 or variety Jones would take Silk Road
00:08:21
for himself Ross couldn't believe what he was hearing he told variety Jones to bring it on if
00:08:29
he wanted because he wasn't going to give in to his demands variety Jones was already making $60,000 a month free
00:08:36
services and that's where Ross was leaving it he wasn't giving away equity after some heated discussion variety
00:08:46
Jones accepted Ross's decision and didn't try and make a play to take over Silk Road
00:08:52
their discussions then moved on to another topic security they were both well aware the
00:08:59
authorities might be watching their every move at that point in time they hadn't come face to face with anyone
00:09:04
suspicious but they wanted to be ready in case they ever did already some months prior ross implemented secret
00:09:12
questions with each of his employees Ross gave each employee a question and a specific answer to that question the
00:09:19
only people who knew the question and the answer were Ross and his employee if Ross got the wrong answer to his
00:09:26
question he would immediately shut down the account of the employee Ross then adopted another condition for his
00:09:33
employees if someone wanted to work for him he or she would have to provide some
00:09:38
sort of ID this could be a driver's license or a passport there wasn't just about wanting to know who worked for him
00:09:45
it was also a guarantee for himself his employees were starting to handle more and more responsibilities and some even
00:09:53
had access to Bitcoin accounts so now if someone decided to steal from him he would have their name and address he
00:10:01
made it clear to his employees that was the purpose of providing the ID and that
00:10:06
he wasn't someone to mess with along with these new employment conditions Ross took care of security on his laptop
00:10:15
earlier that year he bought a samsung laptop the problem was he hadn't encrypted it at all variety Jones had
00:10:23
recently discussed a case on the news a man who was leaking information to WikiLeaks had been arrested and his
00:10:29
computer was very easily accessed by the FBI because he used the same password to
00:10:33
log into his computer and for the encryption Ross and variety Jones both agreed this was very stupid if he had
00:10:41
used different passwords that were both strong the FBI might not have been able to get into his computer so easily if at
00:10:47
all Ross was adamant that he wouldn't make the same mistake variety Jones told him
00:10:54
to set his laptop to do two things one was to shut down automatically if it hadn't been used for a certain amount of
00:11:00
time and second was to install a kill switch a kill switch automatically shuts down the computer with the press of a
00:11:08
predetermined key on the keyboard variety Jones explained that this was essential because if the FBI came after
00:11:14
him and approached him in public catching him off guard he would just need to press one key on his laptop and
00:11:20
it would shut down and if he did his encryption right the FBI would never be able to access his computer because they
00:11:27
wouldn't have his passwords therefore they would have no proof against Ross Ross tearless variety Jones told him and
00:11:36
made those two changes on his laptop precise if he should store all of the Silk Road files on the cloud that way
00:11:44
they wouldn't be on his computer at all but that would make working on the site a lot slower so variety Jones instructed
00:11:50
Ross to keep the files on his computer but to make sure he encrypted every single one of them after this encryption
00:11:57
process Ross made another change to his computer he partitioned the hard drive this meant that his computer was
00:12:04
separated into two parts one part would be for Ross and his personal life and the other part would be for the Dread
00:12:11
Pirate Roberts and Silk Road from that moment on Ross completely respected the different sides he never did anything
00:12:19
related to his personal life on the Dread Pirate Roberts side and he never did anything related to Dread Pirate
00:12:24
Roberts or Silk Road on his personal side lastly Ross wrote down a list on his computer called emergency it was a to-do
00:12:34
list in case he ever felt he was in real danger of being caught the items he wrote on the list were encrypt and
00:12:41
backup important files on laptop to memory stick destroy laptops hard drive and hired dispose destroy phone and
00:12:48
hired dispose fine place to live on Craigslist for cash and create new identity name in the backstory all of
00:12:58
these steps were taken while variety Jones went to mingle once again with the dealers and buyers on Silk Road but this
00:13:05
time he wasn't getting a gauge for descent and mutiny he was mingling to see if any law
00:13:10
enforcement representatives were lurking on the soil [Music] in the meantime by October 2012 one year
00:13:22
after he'd started his investigation Jarod der-yeghiayan land security investigations team had gotten quite far
00:13:30
he was working in what was essentially a team of one the few others knew what he
00:13:35
was doing and helped him here and there but mostly Jared did it all by himself he had now ceased over 2000 on furlough
00:13:43
containing drugs that were neatly classified in his office and with his profiling system he managed to identify
00:13:49
and link certain drugs to sellers on Silk Road he was able to make several arrests by doing this once he had the
00:13:57
sellers in custody he made them hand in their Silk Road accounts and Jared took them over he then entered the site and
00:14:04
pretended to be then Jared never planned on making sales of his own and unlike Carl force from the Baltimore DEA office
00:14:13
he never tried to contact the Dread Pirate Roberts he didn't believe that would work what he was interested in was
00:14:21
building his Silk Road profile further and understanding more about the site what Jared believed would work and what
00:14:29
he had been trying to do from the beginning was to try and get in the shoes of the people who were using Silk
00:14:34
Road to try and think like they did and this is exactly what he did when trying to figure out who the Dread
00:14:42
Pirate Roberts was since the seller accounts had shown him more about the community but not much more about the
00:14:52
Dread Pirate Roberts Jarrod went to the best source available the Dread Pirate Roberts forum posts the Dread Pirate
00:15:00
Roberts had posted many messages and those messages had evolved over time at the beginning when he was the Silk Road
00:15:08
administrator the messages were simpler or stuck mostly to whatever announcement
00:15:12
he had to make about the soil but as time passed and when he changed his name from admin to the Dread Pirate Roberts
00:15:19
the messages got longer and had more of a revolutionary idea behind them the Dread Pirate Roberts spoke more and more
00:15:27
about the poor role of the government and how Silk Road would never fall into the hands of it
00:15:33
Jarrod knew the Dread Pirate Roberts was a well-read individual he even managed a
00:15:38
book club in the Silk Road forums he selected a book each way that the Silk Road community could then discuss
00:15:44
knowledge was power and reading was one of the best ways to increase your knowledge the Dread Pirate Roberts said
00:15:51
the books focused on algorism counter economics anarcho-capitalism austrian economics political philosophy freedom
00:16:00
issues and related topics as a way to try and understand how the Dread Pirate Roberts thought Jarrod read the books
00:16:08
however he found them very dense and he didn't agree with libertarianism to him it felt like a set of beliefs put
00:16:16
together designed for the sole purpose of not having to take responsibility for your actions but the books did help him
00:16:23
to continue building a profile on who the Dread Pirate Roberts could be so far Jared's theory was that the Dread
00:16:30
Pirate Roberts was very educated he didn't seem rich but he didn't seem poor either so most likely he belonged to the
00:16:37
middle class and although he was completely against the government and spoke about a revolution money and
00:16:44
profit was definitely a motivation one more important conclusion Jared had was that the Dread Pirate Roberts was young
00:16:53
Jared concluded this based on the wording in his forum posts the words he used in the way he spelled them and
00:17:01
looked to Jared like someone young was behind them while Jared was analyzing the Dread Pirate Roberts forum posts he
00:17:08
was informed that an agent from the DEA who was working with a homeland security
00:17:11
team in Baltimore was chatting with the Dread Pirate Roberts regularly this was of course agent Karl force who was
00:17:19
posing as nob on Silk Road Jared was initially frustrated about this fact but then he saw the positive side of it that
00:17:27
would give him further conversations to analyze Jared asked for the chat logs between knob and the Dread Pirate
00:17:33
Roberts but when he got the logs he felt alarmed by what he was reading he noticed immediately that agent cart
00:17:41
force in his nob persona was trying to play friends with the Dread Pirate Roberts he was trying to gain his trust
00:17:48
but by doing so he was giving away too much information Carl had gone as far as telling the
00:17:56
Dread Pirate Roberts that he should have alternate passports made with a new identity and he should look for a new
00:18:02
place to live that was far from us laws and regulations Jared was right to be alarmed
00:18:08
because Ross was taking nobs advice and doing exactly that in November 2012 Ross flew to Dominica an island in the
00:18:25
Caribbean grass at Danny's research and found that it was one of the best places
00:18:30
he could escape to there were two main reasons the first was that in Dominica you could buy a citizenship with an
00:18:37
investment of $75,000 and the second was that it was a tax-free country one of the main worries Ross had was
00:18:47
that by exchanging his big coins for cash he would draw suspicion his account was getting larger and larger and the
00:18:54
value of Bitcoin itself was growing as well as good as that was from a financial perspective it also posed the
00:19:00
problem Ross had no idea how to remove money from his Bitcoin account without getting asked the question where did all
00:19:09
that money come from but in Dominica he didn't need to justify his income to the government so
00:19:15
Ross traveled there to have his citizenship expedited while he was travelling Silk Road suffered from
00:19:23
another hacking attack when Ross got to Dominica he had no option but to do what
00:19:28
the hack is asked to hand over ten thousand dollars worth of Bitcoin after Ross gave them the ten grand
00:19:35
the hackers realized they could ask for more so before stopping the attacks they
00:19:40
demanded a further fifteen thousand dollars again Ross found himself with no other
00:19:46
option he had to pay up once the hacking attacks were over he continued with his plans in Dominica one
00:19:57
of the conditions in order to get citizenship was presenting recommendation letters from people who
00:20:01
had known him for a long time so Ross asked some of his friends they knew he was constantly searching for startup
00:20:08
opportunities and when he explained the tax-free opportunities in Dominica that made sense to them they weren't
00:20:14
suspicious at all while Ross still care if the paperwork he also search for other alternative
00:20:20
places to escape just in case variety Jones had told him not to settle for one but to search for two or more places to
00:20:27
escape to Ross was interested in Costa Rica Thailand where variety Jones was in a few places in Europe but he didn't
00:20:37
like the idea of having to hide possibly for years and he also didn't like not being able to talk about Silk Road or if
00:20:43
the problems to anyone in real life from the book American kingpin Ross told variety Jones the worst part is that I
00:20:53
have no one to talk to about this stuff with it just bounces around in my head variety Jones answered best advice I can
00:21:03
give right now his plan on a few years without emotional attachments X's can put you in jail for life the one thing
00:21:13
Ross took solace in was a new feature he introduced the Silk Road Silk Roads movie night he set a date for everyone
00:21:21
in the community who wanted to take part they all downloaded the same movie and watched it at the same time the movie he
00:21:29
chose was a V for Vendetta one of his favorites he saw a lot of similarities between the movie and Silk
00:21:35
Road and he posted the following quote from it people should not be afraid of their governments governments should be
00:21:43
afraid of their people when Ross finished completing the paperwork in Dominica and he was sure
00:21:51
that his citizenship application was in process he returned to San Francisco upon his
00:21:58
return he found himself with many more problems the hacking attack that occurred when he was flying to Dominica
00:22:05
had forced his program at a shut silkroad down for two days during those two days buyers and sellers became
00:22:12
increasingly worried that Silk Road wouldn't return at all many wondered if the Dread Pirate Roberts had left with
00:22:19
all of their money their fears were alleviated once Silk Road went back online but that wasn't the end of it
00:22:28
many theorized that the Dread Pirate Roberts wasn't the same Dread Pirate Roberts anymore sometime prior as part
00:22:36
of local security measures and contingencies the Dread Pirate Roberts announced that he would try and change
00:22:41
his riding style in his posts so that it would become more undetectable but this
00:22:46
backfired as many suspected it wasn't the same Dread Pirate Roberts anymore they thought it was someone else
00:22:52
completely Silk Roads movie night became criticized too many believed that the true Dread Pirate Roberts would never
00:23:00
post a link to a torrent site to download a movie because it would go against the very strict security
00:23:05
measures he was claiming to keep other scams continued to take place as well one which many uses fell for was the
00:23:14
hidden Wikipedia scam someone had changed the link to Silk Road on the hidden Wikipedia page and replaced it
00:23:22
for a link to a clone of the Silk Road page the clone site looked exactly like the real thing
00:23:28
[Music] the difference was that the client site asked you to enter your pin code for
00:23:33
your Bitcoin wallet to login so when a person entered their pin code on the clone site they soon had their bitcoins
00:23:40
stolen another scam came in December 2012 someone changed some of the images on the sellers accounts and added a
00:23:49
quick Buy button the quick buy button redirected the person to a Bitcoin address where they had to send their
00:23:55
money to make the quick buyer but it was a complete scam these scams brought endless complaints but by the end of
00:24:03
December 2012 Ross was able to get things back to normal and focus on what was important expanding the armory
00:24:12
proved to be a bad decision there wasn't a single sale of a gun so he closed it down he temporarily allowed for guns to
00:24:20
be sold on Silk Road again but due to backlash he removed them and said they wouldn't
00:24:25
be returning to Silk Road around this time other new listings started to appear as detailed in the book American
00:24:34
kingpin one of Ross's employee sent him the following message so we have a vendor selling cyanide not sure where we
00:24:44
stand on this he's not listing it as a poison but it's only the most well known assassination and suicide poison out
00:24:51
there lol Ross requested a link to the listing the seller had written that cyanide was
00:25:00
perfect for cleaning gold and silver and could even be used to treat leprosy and
00:25:05
with every sale of cyanide he would throw in a free copy of an e-book called the final exit a guide to source of it
00:25:14
Ross decided to allow this listing soon after one of his employees sent him this message question foyer do we allow
00:25:24
our selling kidneys and livers the seller said in the listing that the entire operation would be consensual
00:25:31
Ross replied yes if the source consents than it's okay morals are easy when you understand the
00:25:38
non-aggression principle one of the first things a person read when they entered Silk Road was the following
00:25:46
message you may be shocked to find the listings here that are outlawed in your jurisdiction that doesn't mean Silk Road
00:25:53
is lawless in fact we have a very strict code of conduct that if given a chance most people I think would agree with our
00:26:01
basic rules that are treat others as you would wish to be treated mind your own business and don't do anything to hurt
00:26:07
or scam someone else in the spirit of those rules there are some things you will never say here and if you do please
00:26:14
report them they include a child pornography stolen goods assassinations and stolen personal information just the
00:26:23
name of you so Ross wasn't against the selling of organs or body parts in fact he thought
00:26:31
if other sellers follow through there might be a good way of expanding the business body parts and organs went for
00:26:37
a much higher price than drugs a kidney alone could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars but Ross's main
00:26:44
goal for expansion was implementing the Masters of the Silk Road idea that had been proposed by nob the offshoot site
00:26:51
from Silk Road that would focus on bulk drug sales he had been going back and forth discussing the idea with nob over
00:26:58
the last few months and it was finally about to happen nob wanted to do a test buyer and Ross
00:27:09
found a buyer for a kilo of cocaine the delivery of coke was arranged for January 2013
00:27:17
Ross waited anxiously to see if the delivery was a success but nob had other plans
00:27:24
the Baltimore Homeland Security Investigations team had formed the task force called the Marcopolo task force
00:27:31
and did their biggest asset was DEA agent Karl Force who was posing as nob on Silk Road karl was once again acting
00:27:42
without authorization in relation to his master's at the Silk Road idea he was continuing to play by his own rules his
00:27:50
conversations with the Dread Pirate Roberts took place on tour chat and they were recorded and monitored by the Marco
00:27:56
Polo task force although they didn't approve of his idea to set up the Masters of the Silk Road site there
00:28:02
wasn't much they could do about it the plan was already in action Carl said he was just playing the friend
00:28:09
card with the Dread Pirate Roberts but Jarrett from the homeland security office in Chicago wasn't the only one
00:28:15
who was questioning what information Carl was giving away they talked about nearly everything including sometimes
00:28:22
personal experiences but it was the information about drug smuggling that Carl was giving to the Dread Pirate
00:28:28
Roberts that most concerned the Baltimore task force for example Carl explained how to avoid the mail system
00:28:36
completely with large quantities of drugs by doing dead drops dead drops involve a deal or leaving drugs at a
00:28:42
location like a Hyatt locker then the dealer would provide the combination code to the boil the Boyer would take
00:28:48
the drugs and leave the money inside the locker that way both dealer and buyer could make the transaction without ever
00:28:54
needing to meet face to face Carl was also toeing the Dread Pirate Roberts that he loved him to stay safe and he
00:29:02
even wished him good night when Carl supervised a question to these conversations Carl simply answered that
00:29:10
he needed to gain the Dread Pirate Roberts trust and he was saying whatever it took to do that Homeland Security in
00:29:19
the DEA weren't the only agencies involved in the Marco Polo task force in Baltimore it also included people from
00:29:26
the Postal Service who helped track the drugs in the mail and agents from the Secret Service to try and follow the
00:29:32
money on Silk Road Shawn bridges was a Secret Service agent working on the task force and he desperately wanted to be
00:29:39
the one to bring down the Dread Pirate Roberts as it can't force there was a lot of competition between the competing
00:29:47
agencies there was even competition between agents within the same agency everyone wanted to be the one to crack
00:29:54
the case it would be a career-maker this resulted in poor communication and exchange of information but Shawn
00:30:03
bridges and cart Force decided to team up they came up with a plan to involve the NSA in the Silk Road case they had
00:30:12
heard that the NSA could get into any computer in the world so they wanted their help
00:30:18
Shawn bridges had a contact in the NSA and he managed to arrange a meeting with an analyst from the agency Shawn and
00:30:26
Carl met up with the analyst but didn't tell anyone else in the Marco Polo task force the analyst explained to them that
00:30:33
the NSA couldn't touch a case unless there was a threat to national security so Carl and Shawn came up with a new
00:30:41
plan they would buy explosives from Silk Road which were for sale at the time and
00:30:46
it that way that could prove that Silk Road was a threat to national security their idea
00:30:53
was to buy pipe bombs and have them delivered to a secret government post office box but they aborted their plan
00:30:59
when they realized that having bombs delivered in the mail could be dangerous and problematic for them so that's when
00:31:06
Carl force decided to move forward with his master's of the Silk Road idea and he asked the Dread Pirate Roberts to
00:31:12
find a buyer for a kilo of cocaine the price was $27,000 Ross asked one of his employees who went by the username
00:31:23
chronic-pain to find a buyer chronic pains real name was Curtis Greene Curtis found a buyer and the plan was for the
00:31:32
kilo of coke to be delivered to Curtis his house first the Dread Pirate Roberts sent nob at the address as soon as Carla
00:31:43
got the address the entire Marco Polo task force started moving the delivery was set to take place on a
00:31:50
Wednesday in January 2013 the entire Baltimore task force traveled 2,000 miles to curtis's address in Spanish
00:31:58
Fork Utah Carl had a contact in law enforcement there and he asked to borrow a kilo of cocaine from their evidence
00:32:04
room Carl got the kilo then arranged a priority mail package at the local post office the plan was to do a controlled
00:32:14
delivery an officer would pose as a mailman they parked the van outside curtis's house the rest of the task
00:32:23
force including a SWAT team were parked around the block the delivery was made at 11 a.m.
00:32:30
Carl said in a car across the street watching the entire operation unfold the officer posing is the mailman grabbed
00:32:38
the package from the back of the pen and - left it at Curtis greens front door he
00:32:43
then returned to the van and waited a few minutes passed before the door of the house opened and Curtis green looked
00:32:53
out from the doorway he was in his 40s and used a crane to get around he stared at his surroundings and saw the white
00:33:02
male van still parked at the front then he stared at the package waiting for him
00:33:06
on the porch he slowly walked towards the package picked it up walk towards the garbage can next to his house and
00:33:16
throw it out then he returned inside and closed the door Carl watched the curtis's every move and
00:33:26
he didn't understand what was happening he started communicating with the rest of the task force and they tried to work
00:33:32
out their next move if Curtis didn't take the package there wasn't much they could do but before they could make a
00:33:40
decision Curtis green opened the front door again he walked back to the trashcan grabbed
00:33:46
at the package indented his house with it closing the door behind him as soon as he closed the door the task
00:33:57
force made their move the SWAT team went in first they broke in the front door and Yoda Curtis green to get on the
00:34:04
ground Curtis was taken by surprise he had a pair of scissors in one hand the package
00:34:10
was open on the table and part of his face was covered in cocaine he immediately did as he was told
00:34:17
and dropped to the floor the officers then started searching curtis's house Curtis was wearing a money belt attached
00:34:26
to his hip and it had $23,000 cash inside in curtis's basement they found several computers that were all linked
00:34:34
together the new Curtis worked as a moderator for the Dread Pirate Roberts but they soon discovered he had other
00:34:41
responsibilities as well firstly his computers worked at the mine Bitcoin the process is complex but in simple terms
00:34:50
all of the transactions made with Bitcoin need to be verified by multiple sources this verification process is
00:34:57
called morning and is performed by a distributed network of computers anyone can run mining software and as a reward
00:35:05
for doing so they received small amounts of Bitcoin when Curtis was caught mining
00:35:11
could still be done on computers at home or with several computers but today mining bitcoins is a very expensive
00:35:18
investment because the algorithms become more and more complex and it takes expensive computer equipment to solve
00:35:24
them apart from the mining of bitcoins the agents found out something else Curtis green handled logins and
00:35:34
passwords of Silk Road users and he also handled the bitcoins that were in Silk Roads escrow account
00:35:42
Secret Service agent Shawn bridges was especially interested in this as his role was to follow the money
00:35:49
while he got what evidence he could from the computers down in the basement Carl
00:35:54
for started talking to Curtis Curtis explained that the Dread Pirate Roberts had authorized him to control the
00:36:02
bitcoins when a user paid for a product the site guarded the money until the buyer was satisfied and Curtis had
00:36:10
access to all of that money Curtis was arrested taken to the local police station booked processed and then
00:36:18
released he stayed hidden in his house in fear certain that the Dread Pirate Roberts would realize that he wasn't on
00:36:25
the site working like he ought to be and soon enough the Dread Pirate Roberts did
00:36:30
realize when Kurtis green Hawk chronic pain as he was known on Silk Road didn't log in
00:36:38
the following day Ross grew suspicious that something might have happened since Kurtis was the
00:36:44
one receiving the kilo of cocaine with Ross's new safety measures he had put in place for his employees he had curtis's
00:36:51
identification so he did a Google search of his name that led him to a website that showed recent arrests and there he
00:37:01
saw Kurtis Greene's mug shot but that wasn't the only thing that Ross found out a few days later he discovered that
00:37:11
there was three hundred and fifty thousand dollars missing from user accounts and there wasn't much doubt as
00:37:16
to who was responsible Kurtis Green was the only person who had access to that money initially Ross didn't know what to
00:37:27
do but the more he thought about it the more he felt that Kurtis Green had the pay Ross wanted the money back and
00:37:35
Kurtis had to learn a lesson cross consulted variety Jones and variety Jones not only believed that
00:37:46
Kurtis deserved to get roughed up but he gave the Dread Pirate Roberts our contact he heard there was a man from
00:37:53
Ireland that went by the name Irish he would travel to wherever he had to and make someone disappear if needed the
00:38:02
problem was that Irish didn't know anything about technology or computers so he wouldn't be able to use curtis's
00:38:08
computers to return the stolen bitcoins Ross consulted another of his most trusted employees and neo an ego offered
00:38:18
to go to Utah himself and pay Curtis Greene a visit but Inigo was the employee with most responsibilities on
00:38:24
Silk Road so Ross didn't want to risk having him away from the computer Ross came up with another idea
00:38:33
a week after curtis's arrest DEA agent Carl Force arranged a meeting with him in a hotel room in Salt Lake City Utah
00:38:43
while posing as not on Silk Road Carl had found out that the Dread Pirate Roberts knew of curtis's arrest so Carl
00:38:51
arranged a meeting with Curtis he took Secret Service agent Shawn bridges and a postal worker with him
00:38:57
Curtis showed up with his lawyer [Music] they all sat down and Kurtis immediately
00:39:03
began rambling telling the agents that it was a good Mormon boy who hadn't committed any crimes before and had just
00:39:09
made a mistake at one point in the conversation his lawyer interrupted him and recommended that he confess everything
00:39:17
he knew to the agents the lawyer then left the meeting leaving curtis alone curtis continued rambling but he didn't
00:39:27
share any information that the agents weren't already aware of at lunch time they took a break hoping the curtis
00:39:33
would provide something useful after they ate during the lunch break carl took out his laptop and logged in to
00:39:41
Silk Road he wanted to speak to the Dread Pirate Roberts and see if he could find anything out about Curtis that he
00:39:47
could use against him during the question Carl was successful in chatting to the Dread Pirate Roberts during the
00:39:54
lunch break and so they did speak about Curtis but the conversation was nothing like Carl had expected
00:40:11
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[Music] the Dread Pirate Roberts shared with not that it was pissed off to no end because
00:42:43
one of his employees had stolen bitcoins from him not replied who is it and where is he karl was shocked when
00:42:52
the Dread Pirate Roberts sent him Curtis greens or a photo in fact Karl looked straight at Curtis and said you stole
00:43:00
money from the Dread Pirate Roberts Curtis didn't seem to understand what was happening in the answered know
00:43:06
you've got to be kidding me I wouldn't even know how to steal a penny from him the Dread Pirate Roberts continued
00:43:13
talking to naught and asked him if he knew anyone who could beat Curtis green up and force him to return the money nob
00:43:20
told him he definitely knew people who could do that the Dread Pirate Roberts asked how quickly naught could take care
00:43:27
of getting someone to Curtis his house not replied that it shouldn't take too long at all Karl closed his laptop and
00:43:36
ordered the postal worker that was with him to fill the bathtub he then explained to Curtis what was going to
00:43:41
happen that would pretend to torture him but it would have to look real that would drown him in the bathtub and Karl
00:43:48
would videotape it to have proof for the Dread Pirate Roberts Karl knew it wasn't
00:43:54
an attractive option for Curtis but as he explained it was either fake his torture or risk the Dread Pirate Roberts
00:44:00
sending someone else to do it for real Curtis was terrified of the Dread Pirate Roberts and he agreed to the fake
00:44:07
torture the postal worker pretended to be the torturer and Karl filmed it the postal worker sunk Kurtis is heading to
00:44:15
the bath tub over and over again Carr was encouraging the torture in the background
00:44:23
but the Dread Pirate Roberts was having a change of heart he had been conflicted
00:44:28
on the best course of action to take ever since the big coins were stolen and now the torture of Curtis was actually
00:44:33
taking place he was questioning himself if it was the right thing to do he raised his concerns with the variety
00:44:40
Jones who told him at what point in time do we decide we've had enough of someone's [ __ ] and to terminate them
00:44:48
that was the very option the Dread Pirate Roberts had been considering and it was good to hear that variety Jones
00:44:55
was thinking the same way Dread Pirate Roberts passed the message on to Nova and not the great to kill Curtis green
00:45:05
the price they agreed on was $80,000 40,000 upfront and 40,000 after the job was completed a week later nob sent the
00:45:16
Dread Pirate Roberts a message their conversation is outlined in the book American kingpin knob said Green is dead
00:45:25
and disposed of I'll get your picture for proof of death the Dread Pirate Roberts answered okay thank you I guess
00:45:33
they were unable to get him descended the coins he stole nope they had to do CPR on him one time
00:45:40
actually the trick to torturing someone is keeping the guy alive died of asphyxiation slash heart rupture
00:45:48
after that message knob didn't get a reply back from the Dread Pirate Roberts so we sent him another message you okay
00:45:57
Dread Pirate Roberts responded a little disturbed but I'm okay on new to this kind of thing is all that same day
00:46:08
variety Jones tried to come Dread Pirate Roberts by telling him we're playing for
00:46:13
keeps I'm perfectly comfortable with the decision and I'll sleep like a lamb tonight and every other night hereafter
00:46:21
Dread Pirate Roberts soon received an email from not with the picture that showed Curtis greens body
00:46:26
Ross looked at it for a few moments save the picture to an encrypted folder on his computer and paid not the final
00:46:34
forty thousand dollars Ross believed that was the end of it Curtis Greene was dead except he wasn't
00:46:44
[Music] just like the torturing been faked the murder had been faked as well when Karl
00:46:52
found out that the Dread Pirate Roberts had escalated to murder he was already back in Baltimore so he gave Curtis
00:46:58
Greene a call and told him how to fake his own death he wouldn't need much Karl explained
00:47:03
just the Campbell Soup can he told Curtis to go to the bathroom fill the bathtub with water in sink his head in
00:47:11
then drink the Campbell's soup and throw it up so it looked like blood had come out of his mouth finally he would have
00:47:18
to lie on the floor looked dead and asked his wife to take a close-up picture of him with a cell phone so the
00:47:24
quality of the picture wouldn't be very good and that was the picture that Ross received from nob one week later after
00:47:36
the ordered hit things didn't get any easier on Silk Road it seemed like every other day there was
00:47:43
some new problem the security breach a scam a hacking attack or an extortion attempt like when the Dread Pirate
00:47:50
Roberts received a message from a Silk Road user going by the nickname friendly chemist friendly chemist told the Dread
00:47:58
Pirate Roberts that he had hacked a known seller's account and he had a long list of real names and real addresses
00:48:03
all belonging to members of Silk Road and he was threatening to make the list public friendly chemists sent a few of
00:48:12
their names and addresses to the Dread Pirate Roberts so he knew the threat was real and he also told him that the
00:48:17
sellers account he hacked was real Lucy drops he even gave the password for that
00:48:23
account the entire story involving real Lucy drop started with another user going by the name Lucy drop lucy drop
00:48:33
was a seller with an excellent reputation with a lot of sales and a lot of loyal customers but just like Tony 76
00:48:40
had done in the great 420 sale and giveaway Lucy drop asked all buyers to finalise
00:48:45
early the outside of Silk Roads escrow account a lot of buyers agreed they never got their drugs and a Lucy drop
00:48:53
walked away with about a hundred thousand dollars sometime later a new user appeared on Silk Road with the name
00:49:00
real Lucy drop real Lucy drop claimed to be one of the people involved with the original Lucy drop account but he
00:49:08
explained that his partner had [ __ ] him over stolen their computer along with the names and addresses of the
00:49:13
buyers and then walked away with $100,000 now the person behind this new account named friendly chemists who was
00:49:22
extorting the Dread Pirate Roberts apparently was the same person involved with the original Lucy drop account they
00:49:28
ripped off his partner and pulled off the hundred thousand dollar scam as outlined in the book Silk Road in
00:49:35
exchange for not revealing any names or addresses friendly chemists asked the Dread Pirate Roberts for five hundred
00:49:41
thousand dollars explaining that he owed that amount to his suppliers the Dread Pirate Roberts response was for friendly
00:49:49
chemists to ask his suppliers to contact him directly to see if that could work something out
00:49:54
soon after the Dread Pirate Roberts was contacted by a new user going by the name red and white bread and white sent
00:50:02
a message that read I was asked to contact you where did the people friendly chemist those money - what do
00:50:09
you want to talk to us about the Dread Pirate Roberts responded that he wasn't too sure how to sort busier but he
00:50:17
wanted to come to a conclusion that would benefit everyone so if red and white was having problems
00:50:21
with a bad distributor referring to friendly chemist then they should start distributing themselves on Silk Road red
00:50:30
and white replied they'd be more than happy to join Silk Road once they got the money that was owed to them the
00:50:37
conversation between the two of them went back and forth for a few days until the Dread Pirate Roberts sent the
00:50:42
following message friendly chemist is a liability in a wouldn't mind if he was executed just after that message was
00:50:53
sent friendly chemist messaged the Dread Pirate Roberts and said he was giving him 72 hours before 5000 user details
00:50:59
and two dozen seller identities were released after getting this message the Dread Pirate Roberts changed his tune
00:51:08
with red and white he went from wouldn't mind if friendly chemist was executed to something more
00:51:14
certain he said I would like to put a bounty on his head if it's not too much trouble for you what would be an
00:51:21
adequate amount to motivate you to find him necessities like this do happened from time to time for a person in my
00:51:28
position the adequate amount for red and white ranged from $150,000 to $300,000 depending on the type of hit since Dread
00:51:40
Pirate Roberts had just paid $80,000 for the murder of Curtis green he felt the price was a bit higher and he asked red
00:51:47
and white if that was the best he could do red and white said it was because given the time frame friendly chemist
00:51:53
had said there wasn't much time before all those names got released they agreed on a one hundred and fifty thousand
00:51:59
dollar fee they settled on photographic proof just like Ross had done with Curtis green but the problem in this
00:52:09
case was that Ross didn't know who friendly chemist was in real life or what they looked like
00:52:14
so he gave red and white some numbers to be written down on a piece of paper in the place next to the body
00:52:20
the following day red and white reported back your problem has been taken care of
00:52:26
rest easy because he won't be blackmailing anyone again ever but that wasn't the end of it a few days later
00:52:36
red and white messaged the Dread Pirate Roberts again to let him know some new information when the men killed friendly
00:52:42
chemists they questioned him and he confessed that he was working with a partner in the blackmail and two that
00:52:48
partner was Tony 76 Tony 76 the seller who pulled the great 420 sale and giveaway scam on Silk Road users walking
00:52:59
away with about a quarter of a million dollars the biggest scam ever pulled on Silk Road red and white added their
00:53:07
friendly chemist had given up the real name of Tony 76 Dread Pirate Roberts responded I would like to go after Tony
00:53:16
76 if he's our man then he likely has substantial assets the bay recovered perhaps we can hold him and question him
00:53:24
red and white explained there was a problem Tony 76 lived with three of his drug-dealing partners and who they were
00:53:31
usually at home Dread Pirate Roberts answered that he just wanted Tony 76 to be hit but
00:53:39
red-and-white offered to kill Tony 76 and these three partners for half a million dollars red and white also
00:53:46
explained that there would be more chances of getting back the stolen money and perhaps more that they didn't even
00:53:51
know about if all of them were killed Ross thought about it and at the end of the day he came to a decision
00:54:00
he gave the go-ahead one week later red-and-white told the Dread Pirate Roberts that the problem
00:54:08
had been dealt with and he had one less thing to worry about Ross had now paid for six murders in total around at this
00:54:24
same time the FBI cybercrime division got involved in the Silk Road investigation FBI agent Cristobal had
00:54:32
actually been considering going after Silk Road for several months but he wasn't quite sure what the best strategy
00:54:37
would be and he was still debating that when he received a visit from a DEA agent in the beginning of 2013 the DEA
00:54:46
agent was from a team in New York the New York team was conducting their own investigation separate to the Chicago
00:54:53
and Baltimore based teams the agent explained that right after the Gawker article came here Senator Schumer had
00:54:59
given a very public announcement where he called on the DEA to shut Silk Road down but there was a problem the DEA
00:55:07
knew how to run drug investigations but they didn't know how to deal with computers and the Deep Web which was why
00:55:15
18 months had passed since Senator Schumer's announcement and the New York DEA team was still unsure how to go
00:55:21
about the case so they finally made the decision to approach the FBI cybercrime division for help
00:55:29
Tarbell and his cybercrime team listen to everything the agent had to say and then they made their decision they
00:55:36
weren't going to assist the DEA with Silk Road they were going to go off the Silk Road themselves on the face of it
00:55:46
the FBI cybercrime division had the exact opposite problem to the DEA they were fine with the technology side of
00:55:53
things but they didn't have experience in drug investigations however the New York DEA agent had mentioned something
00:56:00
that got their attention the leader of Silk Road the Dread Pirate Roberts was becoming more brazen in what was for
00:56:07
sale before it was mainly drugs but after that came firearms explosives and in our packing tools the FBI cybercrime
00:56:17
team immediately checked what hacking tools were for sale they found listings for keyloggers banking Trojans malware
00:56:24
applications spyware applications and much more they knew that's how they would get
00:56:30
inside the case Tarbell called the higher-ups of the agency presented his idea and two weeks later he was given
00:56:38
approval to open a case on Silk Road the cyber crime team started analyzing Silk
00:56:45
Road in detail and they came to a conclusion their chances of catching the Dread Pirate Roberts and shutting down
00:56:51
the site depended entirely on human error the technology Silk Road used was strong
00:56:57
both Tor and Bitcoin were built to help keep anonymity and that was what made the case such a painstaking ordeal to
00:57:05
anyone who crossed paths with it but they also knew that Tor Bitcoin in Silk Road would build been used by humans and
00:57:13
humans make mistakes so that's what the FBI cybercrime division waited for a mistake
00:57:21
and it came Ross had been dealing with security problems on Silk Road ever since it started and in May 2013 he had
00:57:33
a major one there was a coding error that made the IP address of the server go public
00:57:40
Ross immediately fixed the mistake and soon enough everything went back to normal the IP address of the server was
00:57:47
no longer showing but Ross was worried that if anyone was watching at that precise moment they might have noticed
00:57:53
it and he was right to be worried the FBI cybercrime team were watching even though Silk Road was in the Deep
00:58:03
Web that was still housed by a server and the code of that server had just been revealed
00:58:10
Christabel got to work locating it and he found it a few hours later it was in Iceland
00:58:16
if this server was the real Silk Road server and it hadn't been encrypted or erased they could have all the
00:58:23
information they needed on Silk Road Tarbell took that chance and traveled to Iceland he talked to the local
00:58:30
authorities and they said they would allow him access to the server it was agreed that they would send a Tarbell a
00:58:36
thumb drive containing all of the information on the Silk Road server Tarbell received this in June 2013 he
00:58:43
immediately showed the thumb drive to his computer scientist Thomas Keenan Keenan entered the thumb drive into his
00:58:52
computer and after a few seconds that were looking at all of the folders that he lost Silk Road but they were all
00:58:59
encrypted Tarbell couldn't believe it if the folders were encrypted they would never
00:59:06
be able to access them black variety Jones had said when he first told Ross to encrypt everything if you have good
00:59:12
encryption and a strong password the FBI could never find you kenan tried every trick he knew to beat
00:59:20
the encryption but nothing worked that looked like that was going to be at the end of the server lead until a few days
00:59:29
later Tarbell was talking on the phone with Assistant US Attorney Suren Turner from New York Turner was aware of the
00:59:38
server lead and Tarbell's trip to Iceland and he asked him if there had been any advances in the investigation
00:59:44
Tarbell said there hadn't been because they couldn't get past the encryption and Turner was confused
00:59:50
he asked what the passcode hadn't worked it was Tarbell's turn to be confused what passcode
01:00:01
Turner explained that the authorities in Iceland had sent him a pass code for the
01:00:06
encrypted files for some reason it wasn't passed on the Tarbell when he got the thumb drive but now he had it the
01:00:16
pass code was try to crack this NSA all the one-word Tarbell quickly ended the call and went
01:00:26
to see his computer scientist he gave him the passcode and it worked they were inside the encrypted files of Silk Road
01:00:42
on July 13th 2013 a deconfliction meeting was arranged by the Department of Justice that had come
01:00:50
to their attention that there were too many different agencies going after Silk Road and none of them were cooperating
01:00:56
with each other there was Jarod der-yeghiayan form homeland security in Chicago there was
01:01:02
the Marco Polo task force made up of agents from homeland security in Baltimore caryl force from the DEA Shawn
01:01:09
bridges from the Secret Service as well as people from the Postal Service there was the DEA in New York who were trying
01:01:16
to make something happen and Danelle there was the FBI cybercrime division another agency was also
01:01:24
represented at this deconfliction meeting Gary Alford who worked for the Criminal Investigation Division of the
01:01:31
IRS when the New York DEA requested the help of the FBI cybercrime division they
01:01:37
also requested help from the IRS Gary Alfred got involved in the investigation and moved officers to join
01:01:43
the New York DEA task force Gary's job was to follow the money when Gary was added to the task force he had
01:01:52
never heard of Silk Road but as soon as he started reading up on it he became hooked like most of the people working
01:02:00
on the case Gary wanted to be the one to find out who the Dread Pirate Roberts was he even
01:02:06
had a theory about how he was going to do it as detailed in the book American kingpin Gary was born in the summer of
01:02:14
1977 when a serial killer was terrorizing the city a man nicknamed the Son of Sam a huge investigation was
01:02:23
launched to try and catch him but they didn't seem to be any leads that is until an officer had the idea to go over
01:02:31
all the parking tickets that were placed on cars near the murder scenes he believed that the killer must have
01:02:38
parked his car near the location of the murders enduring at least one of them would have forgotten to feed the parking
01:02:43
meter and received a parking ticket as a result the idea was considered unusual but they went with it and after going
01:02:51
through thousands of parking tickets they found a pattern one man had gotten several tickets and
01:02:57
more than one linked him to the murder scenes the officers paid him a visit and he
01:03:03
confessed to being the Son of Sam [Music] Gary Alfred believed that's the way they
01:03:10
would catch the Dread Pirate Roberts only instead of parking tickets it would be through a trace he had left of
01:03:16
himself online working with this theory Gary followed everything the Dread Pirate Roberts had done and the like
01:03:25
Chicago based homeland security agent Jarod der-yeghiayan had done before him he studied the Dread Pirate Roberts
01:03:31
posts on Silk Road Gary started to build a profile and he concluded that the Dread Pirate Roberts was very educated
01:03:38
when it came to the United States political system so he was very likely from the US Gary found that in the early
01:03:46
posts from the Dread Pirate Roberts he would talk about how Silk Road was much safer than buying drugs in the street
01:03:52
where those people could rip you off or beat you up Gary found on those lines curious he also felt offended he'd been
01:04:01
born and raised in the housing projects in Brooklyn he grew up with many of the people that the Dread Pirate Roberts
01:04:07
described in his posts the people from the street who would rip you off or beat you up Gary didn't agree with those
01:04:14
views and it was for this reason he thought the Dread Pirate Roberts was most likely white and from the suburbs
01:04:22
afterwards he drew up a list of people he believed could possibly be the Dread Pirate Roberts among them those are men
01:04:29
who was outspoken and managed a web forum a man who worked with Bitcoin and a programmer who had libertarian views
01:04:37
he then came up with another theory adrian chen was the Dread Pirate Roberts Adriane was the author of the Gorka
01:04:46
article that have practically launched Silk Road gary thought that maybe adrienne was the Dread Pirate Roberts
01:04:51
and had written a piece for self-promotion the made sense since most people had never heard of Silk Road
01:04:58
before the article existed and the Carrie thought that if Adrian Chen was indeed the Dread Pirate Roberts then
01:05:04
maybe he had written something about Silk Road before the article Gary went to Google and searched for the Gawker
01:05:11
article again he read it over and over trying to find anything unusual or something he had missed before the thing
01:05:18
that stood out was that Silk Roads website didn't end in com but in god onion so he went to Google again and
01:05:26
tried searching Silk Road got onion which he hadn't done before he also filtered the results he set it so that
01:05:33
only results from before june 1st 2011 would appear that was the date the Gork article was published so if Adrian Chen
01:05:42
had written anything about the site before then the results would hopefully show it Gary didn't get many results but
01:05:51
he did say something that he thought was interesting a post in a forum called the
01:05:55
shrew Marie Gary read the post that was from January 27 2011 it was from someone
01:06:04
who said that they casually come across a website called Silk Road and they asked if anyone else had visited
01:06:11
gary saw that the post was written by someone who called themselves Altoid so he tried a new google search this time
01:06:20
he entered Silk Road got onion Altoid which led him to another post this time on the Bitcoin talk forum in a thread
01:06:30
about heroin someone calling themselves out - it was asking if anyone had heard of Silk Road Gary couldn't get these
01:06:38
posts from Altoid out of his mind he contacted the managers of both forums and explained he was an agent from the
01:06:45
government and he needed the name and email address that was linked to the Altoid accounts at first he was told
01:06:52
that Altoid had only left behind a fake email frosty at frosty calm but Gary insisted and further checks showed that
01:07:02
Altoid had actually used another email address when first registering his accounts but he soon deleted it and -
01:07:08
then entered the frosty address despite being deleted the original email address used to create the outer
01:07:16
accounts was still there Ross Ulbricht at gmail.com gary searched for Ross Ulbricht on
01:07:27
Google and found his LinkedIn account some things about Ross fit into his profile Ross was white and from the
01:07:34
suburbs but he didn't have something that seemed too vital for the Dread Pirate Roberts a computer science
01:07:40
background Russ had been a physicist Gary was far from convinced that Ross could be the Dread Pirate Roberts but he
01:07:49
still added him to his suspect list so at that deconfliction meeting held on July 13th between all of the different
01:07:57
agencies investigating Silk Road Gary Alfred from the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS was excited to share
01:08:05
what he had found Luke demboski presided over the meeting he was the highest ranking official in
01:08:12
the Department of Justice demboski explained that the main point of the meeting was to be open about everything
01:08:19
going on in everyone's different investigations so that the Department of Justice could make a knowledgeable
01:08:24
decision on who should lead the Silk Road case the ones who started with a Marco Polo task force from Baltimore
01:08:31
Karl force decided not to attend the meeting but those who did spoke of Karl's arrest of Curtis green they
01:08:39
didn't mention the full details though no mention that karl was posing as not one Silk Road and actually talking to
01:08:45
the Dread Pirate Roberts they left that part out but demboski was already aware of that detail so he asked the Baltimore
01:08:53
agents about their undercover account they said they couldn't talk about it because it was before a grand jury and
01:08:59
was classified demboski was part of that grand jury he was a major representative
01:09:06
of the Department of Justice the same department that made that information classified he tried to get the Baltimore
01:09:12
team to share what they had but they weren't budging everyone wanted the glory no one wanted to share information
01:09:22
things got hated and a break was called to allow everyone to call him when the meeting resumed Jarod
01:09:30
der-yeghiayan decided to speak up he was the chicago-based homeland security agent who was basically running
01:09:37
an investigation by himself before the meeting the Baltimore homeland security agents
01:09:43
warned - Jared not to share any important information they told him to stick to just the minimum because the
01:09:48
FBI would be at the meeting and do they would hear what he had to say steal the info pretended they came up
01:09:54
with it and take all the glory without giving Jared any credit but Jared saw how that stance played out for the
01:10:01
Baltimore team so he decided to take a risk and share everything he had Jared said that ever since October 2011 he had
01:10:12
seized almost three and a half thousand packages he explained how those packages
01:10:16
helped him to make a profile by comparing the packaging and the drugs to the listings on Silk Road this method
01:10:24
had resulted in him identifying several Silk Road sellers and he gave them the option to face the courts or to hand in
01:10:30
their Silk Road account they all took the option of handing in their Silk Road accounts Jared then accessed the sellers
01:10:38
accounts and pretended to be then everyone present at the deconfliction meeting got a far greater understanding
01:10:45
of how Silk Road worked thanks to Jared's presentation they were actually dumbfounded Jared had led an
01:10:53
investigation in Chicago practically on his own and seem to have gotten further than anyone else that was until the FBI
01:11:00
spoke the FBI broke the news to everyone in the room we have the server but they
01:11:11
explained they hadn't had a chance to properly go through it yet they needed more time before they could share what
01:11:17
they had demboski said they could have more time and then asked if anyone else in the room had anything to share
01:11:25
Gary Alfred from the IRS didn't say a word he had changed his mind he didn't share
01:11:32
anything he had found he felt that everyone in the room seemed to be in competition with each other
01:11:38
and what he had really didn't amount to much compared to the others so he kept it to himself when the meeting came to
01:11:45
an end demboski announced that the Department of Justice would analyze everything and
01:11:50
to then make a decision on who would lead the case around at the same time the FBI opened the encrypted files from
01:12:01
the Silk Road server Ross Ulbricht moved Ross was talking to nob and a nod told him that he knew a corrupt agent
01:12:09
involved in the Silk Road case they wouldn't mind giving away information for a price Ross had previously
01:12:17
mentioned how useful it would be to have someone from law enforcement providing information to them to help them stay
01:12:23
ahead Ross trusted nob as he still believed he was a smuggler who had made millions and who had managed to sale
01:12:30
floor enforcement's radar for years so he wasn't surprised when NOC told him about a corrupt investigator he knew
01:12:38
the investigator who nob called Kevin wasn't interested in justice he was interested in profit so he would be
01:12:47
perfect to help the Dread Pirate Roberts stay ahead nob told the Dread Pirate Roberts he could communicate with Kevin
01:12:53
using PGP an encrypted email and messaging service of course there was no corrupt agent going by the name of Kevin
01:13:03
Karl had made him up karl was going to be the one selling the Dread Pirate Roberts information and that's why he
01:13:12
needed to move to an encrypted chat he couldn't have anyone on the Baltimore task force seeing what it was up to but
01:13:20
the conversation he had just had wasn't non encrypted chat so Karl deleted the chat history mentioning Kevin and on
01:13:28
their reports he said there had been technical issues Karl successfully erased all talk of Kevin and corrupt
01:13:35
agents without anyone else from the task force noticing now acting is Kevin Karl
01:13:42
wouldn't need to erase anything because it was all unencrypted chat the task force wouldn't be able to see Carl's
01:13:49
conversations acting his corrupt agent Kevin Karl explained to the Dread Pirate Roberts that he would give him
01:13:57
information for a donation which would cost fifty thousand dollars if the tip was good what he told the Dread Pirate
01:14:05
Roberts initially was that the FBI was now looking phim certain authorities had arrested Silk Road sellers and were
01:14:11
accessing their accounts and the FBI had Silk Roads files from the server learning this information wasn't the
01:14:25
only reason that made Ross decide to move there was a lot going on he still wasn't sure how much Curtis Green had
01:14:32
shared about Silk Road before his murder he had just ordered the murders of five
01:14:37
other men as well Silk Road uses friendly chemist Tony 76 and 2/3 of Tony's partners plus Packers were still
01:14:46
getting into Silk Road and stealing money from him now with this new information Kevin had just given him
01:14:52
Ross thought it was time to make his emergency list a reality part of the list included destroying his laptop and
01:15:00
phone but Ross didn't believe Mathers had gotten that bad just yet destroying his laptop would mean destroying his
01:15:07
access to Silk Road he did believe Mathers had gotten bad enough to put the last lines of his emergency list into
01:15:14
action though find place to live on Craigslist for cash and create new identity name and a backstory
01:15:24
I found a room in a three-bedroom house on Craigslist for $1,200 the place seemed perfect since he would be
01:15:31
subletting a room inside a house already owned by someone else so there were no tracks leading to him especially since
01:15:38
he planned to pay in cash as for his new identity he created one that wasn't far
01:15:45
removed from who he actually was he introduced himself to the other occupants of the house as Joshua Terry
01:15:52
Joshua was 29 years old and was from Texas he worked as a currency trader and did some freelance IT work on the side
01:16:00
he recently returned from a trip to Sydney and he liked to keep to himself he spent most of his time working on his
01:16:07
computer he emphasized the fact that he did a lot of IT work and he spent a lot of time on his computer so that his new
01:16:14
roommates wouldn't grow suspicious and start wondering what he was up to Ross made his new identity close to his own
01:16:22
so he wouldn't forget any details if he built a complicated persona he ran the risk of tripping himself up his new room
01:16:32
was across town from where he was living in San Francisco with his friend Renee and Renee's girlfriend there was far
01:16:39
enough away that he wasn't worried about the people who knew him as Ross crossing
01:16:43
paths with his new roommates who knew him as Joshua Terry one of the first things Russ did when he moved was order
01:16:50
a fake ID in the name of Joshua Terry fake IDs were of course available on Silk Road so that's where he went at
01:16:58
this point there were 1 million users on Silk Road so you could find just about anything
01:17:05
Ross ordered the fake ID except he didn't order just one he ordered nine on July 10 2013 her Customs and Border
01:17:16
Protection Officer working at San Francisco International Airport was going through packages and envelopes
01:17:21
looking for anything out of the ordinary he came face-to-face with a set of three
01:17:26
envelopes that caught his attention the three envelopes were from Canada from three different addresses in Vancouver
01:17:34
there were three different senders listed on each envelope Burt Harris Cole Harris into Arnold Harris the three
01:17:43
envelopes had the same shape the same size and at the same handwriting sensing something was off the customs officer
01:17:51
completed a form that allowed him to open the envelopes and when he did he found nine fake identity cards in the
01:17:57
name of Joshua Terry he emailed the Homeland Security Investigations Department in San Francisco and an agent
01:18:05
attended the airport to check it out the homeland security agents saw the ID cards were addressed to the same person
01:18:12
and all nine of them had the same picture only the picture had been slightly altered on each one so the
01:18:19
person looked slightly different the agent visited the house where the fake IDs were headed but when he arrived at
01:18:27
2260 15th Street a man who didn't speak English open the door so the homeland security agent left with
01:18:34
no answers it was two weeks later on July 26 2013 that the agent realized he'd gone to the wrong address he
01:18:43
couldn't get the nine fake ID cards out of his head and he had another look at the envelopes that's when he realized
01:18:50
they were addressed to 15th Avenue not 15th Street by this time he was busy with something else so he sent to other
01:19:00
San Francisco homeland security agents in his place as the two agents walked towards the front door of 2260 15th
01:19:09
Avenue one of them pulled out the fake IDs to have another look before asking questions when they reached the door the
01:19:17
same agent was about to knock when he saw a man standing on the other side of the door wearing nothing but shorts
01:19:24
there was the men whose picture was on the fake identity cards cross Albrecht froze the two men in suits staring at
01:19:34
him from outside the front door could only mean one thing he managed to compose himself and slowly open to the
01:19:43
door to be continued [Music] you [Music]