By CCN: Roger Ver took to YouTube to read another letter from Ross Ulbricht, creator of the first darknet market using Bitcoin. The libertarian idealist used the opportunity to rail against the war on drugs. Roger Ver Reads Letter from Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht Roger Ver - once nicknamed "Bitcoin Jesus" for his rabid crypto evangelism - is more recently best known as a major proponent of...
A middle-aged Scottish man has been sentenced to five years in prison for using bitcoin to purchase illegal firearms on the dark web. According to local police, David Mitchell, a 48-year-old from Edinburgh paid for a 9mm handgun, magazine, 150 rounds worth of ammunition, and a suppressor from the United States using about $2,750 worth of bitcoin (roughly 0.74 BTC at press time). Bloomberg reports...
Bitcoin pioneer Charlie Shrem saw his assets unfrozen yesterday, dealing a major setback to Gemini founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss' quest to reclaim more than $30 million worth of crypto funds they allege Shrem stole from them more than five years ago. Recent Developments BitInstant founder Charlie Shrem has seen recent headway in his defense against the Winklevoss twins, seeing his assets...
US District Judge Robert Scola has imposed a 20-year prison sentence on 36 year-old Gal Vallerius also known as “Oxymonster” on the dark web drug hub Dream Market. In June, CCN reported that the French-Israeli citizen was apprehended by police at Atlanta airport in 2017 while attending the World Beard and Moustache Championship in Austin Texas. He will now start his prison term in Southern...
Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht is currently serving a double life sentence plus 40 years for his role in operating the infamous Silk Road website. Ulbricht is not eligible for parole. He is currently imprisoned at the high-security United States Penitentiary, Florence High, in Colorado. In August, Maine State Senator and current U.S. Senate Candidate Eric Brakey tweeted how Ulbricht has “very...
Gary Davis, charged with assisting Ross Ulbricht in running a drug trade worth more than $200 million on the Silk Road drug marketplace, has pleaded not guilty in a New York court to charges of conspiracy to distribute narcotics, computer hacking, and money laundering, according to The Times. Davis, who was extradited from Ireland stand trial in the U.S., denied all charges on July 19, according...
Over the past 24 hours, the crypto market has experienced a large sell off as Bitcoin demonstrated a 3 percent drop in price, leading the market to drop $10 billion. Ethereum and EOS recorded the largest drop amongst major cryptocurrencies at 9 percent, while Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Monero, Cardano, and Dash demonstrated steep 7 percent losses. What Caused the Steep Decline? On September 16, CCN...
Once again in the world of cryptocurrency, we have a mystery on our hands. A $720 million sleeping giant has woken up after four years, with $100 million moved to Bitfinex and Binance over the course of ten days at the end of August. The bitcoin wallet contains 111,114 BTC or 0.52% of the total supply. The sudden movement of these dormant funds could have a disruptive potential in the market...
The Canadian province of British Columbia is seeking to set a precedent in cryptocurrency-related law enforcement by laying claim to $1.8 million worth of bitcoin, which it seized from a convicted drug dealer who allegedly operated under the pseudonym “ MarijuanaIsMyMuse” on the infamous dark web platform Silk Road. The Vancouver Star reports that the unnamed man was arrested in 2015 after a...
A U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland has filed a motion to dismiss pending charges against Ross Ulbricht, known as “Dread Pirate Roberts,” who is serving a life sentence following his conviction for his role in the Silk Road marketplace which facilitated the sale of illegal drugs. The motion to drop the indictment and superseding indictment for pending charges was filed by Attorney Robert...
Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, currently serving a double life sentence, has recently created a twitter account under the handle @RealRossU. Hi, this is Ross! I’m hoping to find my voice here after all these years of silence. It has been a strange journey, but I’m so grateful for all those who’ve shown love and support and held me up through the hard times. You give me strength. — Ross...
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Ross Ulbricht’s petition for writ of certiorari, preventing the Silk Road operator from appealing his life sentence before the high court. The Court on Thursday included Ulbricht v. United States in a list of 19 certiorari denied by the court, apparently bringing Ulbricht’s legal saga to what supporters have characterized as a “devastating” close. SCOTUS denied...
The US Marshals Service (USMS) has announced that it will auction off nearly $25 million worth of Bitcoin in less than two weeks. On Monday, the agency issued a statement revealing that it will hold a sealed bid auction to dispose of 2,170 BTC -- worth $23.6 million at the present Bitcoin exchange rate -- seized in connection with a variety of criminal, civil, and administrative cases. Notably...
Finland’s government is preparing to hold its first Bitcoin auction. The Treasury Department has recommended that the government auction off the approximately 2,000 BTC it seized in connection with drug busts nearly two years ago, according to a report from Finnish-language media outlet Helsingin Sanomat. "We recommend public auction for the [sale of the] bitcoins. An auction can be used to...
Twenty organizations signed onto amicus briefs in support of Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht’s petition to have his case reviewed by the US Supreme Court. On Feb. 5, five amicus curiae briefs were filed regarding Ulbricht v. United States, which alleges that the government violated Ulbricht’s Fourth and Sixth Amendment rights during its investigation and sentencing of his case. Each of these...
One of the foremost experts on the operations of the US Supreme Court has identified Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht’s case as one that raises questions that have “a reasonable chance of being granted” a hearing by the Court “in an appropriate case.” Tom Goldstein, the co-founder of respected law blog SCOTUSblog, selected Ulbricht v. United States as Jan. 23’s “petition of the day.” This...
In five years time, fiat currencies are no longer going to have any use as cryptocurrencies replace them. That's according to venture capital investor Tim Draper. At the WebSummit conference in Lisbon, Portugal, Draper was speaking with Forbes. Expressing his views on where he sees the digital currency market, he said: In five years, if you try to use fiat currency they will laugh at you. Bitcoin...
A former U.S. Secret Service agent who was sentenced to 71 months in prison in 2015 for stealing thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin during an investigation into darknet marketplace Silk Road, has been sentenced to an additional two years in prison for another cryptocurrency theft. Shaun Bridges, 35, was sentenced by the U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco yesterday...
The U.S. Department of Justice recently claimed the proceeds from the sale of 144,336 bitcoins found in Ross Ulbricht’s laptop, gained from Silk Road’s seizure in 2013. Claiming the proceeds took a couple of years, and netted the government little over $48 million. The government’s release reads: “These Bitcoins were ultimately sold by the United States Marshals Service pursuant to Court order...
Federal prosecutors have filed charges against multiple individuals accused of running drug distribution networks on dark web marketplaces Silk Road and AlphaBay. The group is said to have sold drugs worth over $7 million in bitcoin during their operations. An unsealed indictment from the Eastern District Court of California revealed charges filed against two for conspiracy to possess and...
The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has denied Ross Ulbricht’s appeal of a life sentence for his role as the leader of the Silk Road online drug marketplace, according to a court filing. Circuit judges did not agree with Ulbricht’s claims that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence, that the court denied him a right to a fair trial and denied his...
The bitcoin scaling debate has driven many people in the bitcoin community to assume a cult-like viewpoint, an observation Vinny Lingham makes with despair. In a blog titled, “Satoshi’s Choice,” Lingham observed that the bitcoin community has failed to maintain a level attitude aimed at achieving the greater good for the community. Hence, he doesn’t see a resolution to the current impasse on...
Prosecutors are demanding three men charged with selling drugs online in Norway repay their profits in 120 BTC and millions in Norway kroner, the first time the country has demanded payment in bitcoin, according to RT newswire. The men allegedly sold drugs using Silk Road and other underground websites to sell drugs, according to prosecutor Richard Beck Pederson. The payments were mostly made...
A new documentary called ‘Banking on Bitcoin’ is to release in select theatres and VOD on January 6. Focusing on the 2008 financial crisis with many bitcoin advocates questioning early on why money was being controlled by central banks, the documentary highlights bitcoin as a ‘monetary revolution.’ Despite the fact that money has been issued by central banks for hundreds of years with bitcoin a...
When Ross Ulbricht was found guilty for administering the darknet marketplace known as the Silk Road, it marked the beginning of a campaign by supporters to at least lessen the then 30-year-old’s life sentence. In October 2013, Mr. Ulbricht was working at the San Francisco Public Library when he was surrounded by federal agents who detained him. Sent to New York to face trial for running the...
Ross Ulbricht was allegedly the man behind the notorious dark web Marketplace Silk Road. CCN reported when his trial begun back in 2015, and when it led to a sentence of life in prison as he was convicted of owning the “Dread Pirate Roberts” (DRP) account in the marketplace. According to Motherboard, Ross’ attorneys claim to have discovered new evidence that someone used the Dread Pirate Roberts...
Plenty of room for dark humor?
Today marks a significant day for Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk Road, as he rests his hopes on an appeal that could see him spending any part of his sentence outside prison. Before Silk Road was seized by the FBI in 2013, it was considered as the most sophisticated marketplace on the Internet. Attracting people because of the anonymity it provided its users, it sold fakes IDs, drugs, computer...
Harvard professor and renowned economist Ken Rogoff has said that to tackle tax evasion and illicit activities the amount of physical cash around the world needs to be reduced. Speaking to CNBC, Rogoff said that cash provided the ideal avenue for tax evasion. He said: The evidence, I think, is overwhelming that that is a lot of the use. I’m trying to find a sweet spot where ordinary people can...
The lawyer who defended Peter Nash, one of the three men indicted on charges of conspiracy to distribute narcotics, commit computer hacking, and commit money laundering in the Silk Road has hinted at a no mercy sentencing for the third accused person. Andrew Frisch says 27-year-old Irishman, Gary Davis, an alleged Silk Road admin, is unlikely to avoid a “severe” prison sentence as the last of the...
A total of five people bid on $1.6 million in bitcoin the government auctioned on Monday, according to Inverse, which begs the question: why did so few seek to bid on the last block of bitcoins the government was auctioning from the Silk Road bust of 144,000 bitcoins? The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) auctioned the block of 2,700 bitcoins on Monday. In six hours, someone placed the winning bid...
A former New Jersey police officer is reported to have plead guilty to attempting to sell stolen bitcoin mining hardware, according to NJ.com. Vincent Saggese, 34, is reported to have admitted to meeting an undercover agent last year where he is alleged to have tried selling computer equipment including bitcoin mining equipment from KnC Miner. A ten-year veteran of Plainfield Police Department...
The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) announced today that they will be auctioning off $1.6 million worth of bitcoins later this month. The more than 2,700 bitcoins were forfeited from various cases including that of the notorious online black market, Silk Road, which was shut down by the FBI in 2013. In an announcement released today the USMS said that the online auction will take place on Monday...
Compared to the days of Silk Road in 2013, the number of transactions of illicit drugs on the cryptomarkets has tripled, with revenues doubling, says a new report by RAND Europe. The not-for-profit research institute, whose mission is to help improve policy and decision-making through research and analysis, names vendors who indicated they were operating from the U.S. as having the highest market...
Digital currencies such as bitcoin are attractive for terrorism financing, according to Australia’s financial intelligence agency, AUSTRAC, which is calling for them to regulate it under its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws. A report published by AUSTRAC, Terrorism financing in Australia 2014, stated that terrorism financing was turning its attention to electronic and...
Bitcoin advocate and entrepreneur Charlie Shrem, the founder of bitcoin exchange BitInstant who was arrested in arrested and convicted in 2014 and held in a high-security federal prison camp since March 2015 has now been released from imprisonment. Bitcoin entrepreneur Charlie Shrem, the former vice chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation and founder and CEO of bitcoin exchange BitInstant has been...
Indian authorities are investigating two syndicates selling drugs over the darknet using bitcoin. R.R. Bhatnagar, the director general of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), said that for the first time, the bureau has detected drug dealers using bitcoin and the darknet operating illegal drug trafficking in India. The NCB investigations have indicated that some of the people involved are based in...
Microsoft and the U.S. government are in an ongoing battle over an Irishman allegedly involved in Silk Road wanted by the FBI on darknet drug charges, as reported by Deep Dot Web. The 27-year-old Irishman, Gary Davis, from Wicklow, is currently fighting an extradition case led by the FBI so that he can avoid facing charges for his alleged involvement in Silk Road, the illegal online marketplace...
Shaun Bridges, the former Secret Service agent who pleaded guilty to stealing more than $800,000 in bitcoin while investigating Silk Road, is suspected in two other theft cases, according to a recently unsealed affidavit, Reuters reported. Bridges is believed to have stolen $700,000 of bitcoin from a Secret Service account three months after the agency was urged to remove his access to the...
Ernst & Young revealed today that it has successfully auctioned off 24,518 bitcoins worth around A$22 million ($16 million) as part of a scheduled auction after the Australian government confiscated the bitcoins from a Silk Road user. Financial services firm Ernst & Young oversaw the closed international auction, which was open to bidders from 20 June and ended 21 June, who supplied a...
With the re-emergence of the third iteration of Silk Road it appears that this iconic darknet market brand is here to stay. What is to be expected this time around? A Brief History When the Silk Road first launched in February of 2011 it did so to little fanfare. But as media coverage intensified and the authorities began to take notice the marketplace and all participants came under heavy...
A proliferation of illegal activities admittedly took place on darknet Silk Road marketplace. Very quickly, politicians like Charles Schumer took aim at the Silk Road. Brought down in 2013 by law enforcement, the Silk Road did put an idea into society that is likely here to stay; distributed e-commerce, anonymous and peer-reviewed as can be through the use of digital currency. At its heart:...
It has been a tough couple of years for Ross Ulbricht and his family. In mid-2015, Ross Ulbricht learned his fate for his involvement in Silk Road (which was futilely appealed). The Silk Road, as readers may remember, was an online black market that featured everything from guns to drugs to counterfeit documents for sale. His mother, Lyn, has suffered serious health complications presumably from...
Two U.K. men who pleaded guilty to selling drugs on the Silk Road Marketplace website were each sentenced to five years in jail, according to The Express & Star in the U.K. Richard Hiley worked with Peter Ward, who was reported to be a major figure on the dark web and used the name PlutoPete. Ward commissioned Hiley, a former customer, to transfer bitcoins into cash. Duo Claimed To Sell Legal...
Federal prosecutors say details about the second arrest of Shaun Bridges, a former U.S. Secret Service agent charged with stealing in the Silk Road investigation, must remain sealed, in part, because they believe there are one or more co-conspirators, according to a filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Authorities charged Bridges and former DEA agent Carl Force with...
It has been nearly a year since Ross Ulbricht was convicted in all seven charges filed against him for his substantial role as the figurehead in the running of Silk Road, the infamously anonymous dark web drug marketplace. Now, his defense is filing to appeal. Their strategy is to seek a retrial by citing a long stack of abuses by the prosecutors and the court while convicting Ulbricht. The...
Two men in Ireland, one a bitcoin trader, pled guilty to selling drugs on the darknet to customers worldwide, according to The Irish Examiner. The bitcoin trader posted drug orders to different countries after trading bitcoin. He admitted to selling drugs on Silk Road and Agora. Police charged Richard O’Connor and Neil Mannion, both 34 years old and from Dublin, with possessing drugs valued at...
The rapid growth of cryptocurrencies in recent years has resulted in a number of law enforcement actions by several U.S. government agencies. These actions demonstrate U.S. regulators’ interest in investigating fraud and other activities, according to Latham & Watkins, a Los Angeles-based, U.S. law firm. To give the cryptocurrency industry an overview of what agencies are taking action and...
Shaun Bridges, a former Secret Service agent who stole more than $800,000 worth of bitcoins during the investigation into darknet marketplace Silk Road, has been sentenced to 71 months in prison. In June, Bridges pleaded guilty to siphoning off the bitcoins from Silk Road before moving them an account on Mt. Gox. At the sentencing in San Francisco, U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg called the...
A team of federal law enforcement officials in New York have announced the unsealing of charges against Roger Thomas Clark, a senior adviser to Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht. According to the unsealed charges, Clark was a close confidante to Ulbricht and advised him on all aspects of Silk Road operations. Clark, arrested on Dec. 3, 2015 in Thailand, is pending extradition to the U.S. In...