Feds: Silk Road boss paid $80,000 for snitch’s torture and murder | Hacker News Reader

Feds: Silk Road boss paid $80,000 for snitch’s torture and murder

arstechnica.com

150 pointstptacek140 comments

Holy shit.

He paid $80k to an undercover cop to have someone else killed.

Incidentally: Thomas Ptacek's First Rule Of Internet Violent Crime (based on something like a decade of news stories):

If you ask someone you meet on the Internet to accept money in exchange for killing somebody, and they say yes, THEY'RE A COP.

I agree. According to the article he evidently ordered another hit worth $150k. This idiot sounds like he was trying to become some sort of psuedo mob boss. Totally doesn't look the part though [1]

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2013/10/02/who-is-ross-u...

Honestly? We only hear about the ones where it was an undercover cop, because that's when they get caught. Selection bias. It could be that 99% of the time, it's an actual hitman. Would you and I (the general public) ever really know about those times?

You'd think once in a while a "real" Internet hit man would get caught, and you'd read about that. But I've never read that story. I just read story after story about the morons who think they can more or less request a murder on Craigslist, and who let money change hands with the first person they talk to who seems amenable.

You don't just never hear about "internet" hitmen getting caught- you never hear about any hitman getting caught, that I've heard of. I find that suspicious, and am not willing to conclude "ah, so hitmen must not exist". There are just too many people, too many grudges, too much power & money. They probably slip through the cracks, either in the shadow of a kingpin going down, or perhaps most hitmen pretend to be ordinary criminals and take the rap as part of the job.

> you never hear about any hitman getting caught.

I've heard several.

Just in the past week: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2435718/Ex-Army-vet-...

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/27/3655150/police-hollywo...

You should be familiar with Mark "Chopper" Read who these days makes his money on the speaking circuit.

http://www.chopperread.com

I would guess that they take the rap not "as part of the job" but simply because there's no dilemma in the first place. Imagine the required scenario: a cop telling an admitted serial killer "Look, you're a small fish. If you can give us someone who's really worth our time, we can make life a lot easier for you."

First of all, that already seems like a dubious proposition. Really, they're going to give him immunity for all the people he murdered in exchange for information and cooperation? I guess maybe, but they sure as hell aren't going to publicize that fact.

But before you even get to that point, the cops have to find a suspect who admits to being a hit man. If I were a hit man, probably the last thing I'd say to a cop upon being arrested for murder would be "Oh, don't worry, I do this for a living." If you look at the risk and reward, the almost certain odds of being charged with even more murders are going to outweigh the slim odds that the cops want to lighten your sentence in exchange for cooperation.

So the only group of hit men that leaves who might be willing to confess are those who are already serving life sentences, or are on death row. But we have to filter the life sentences down even more to life without parole, since I think admitting to a past career in assassinations might look slightly iffy to a parole board.

If you have life without parole, I can still think of plenty of plausible reasons that you wouldn't want to admit to being a hit man.

>Really, they're going to give him immunity for all the people he murdered in exchange for information and cooperation?

No, but they might take the death penalty off the table.

Would that be a good thing if you were facing life in prison?

You normally would be facing the death penalty for a contracted hit.

Information and cooperation is, I imagine, likely to end in your death far faster than death row...

Real crews on the street do indeed pay hitmen. http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2013/04/04/suspects-in-duhre-m... the cost is $15k for a regular guy in the game and up to $100k for ranking crew members. They don't advertise on the internet. They are always ex cons and other crews will use them, they are completely independent and not loyal to anybody (surprise, no loyalty in the hitman industry).

This isn't the first time organized online crime has mirrored it's real life equivalents. There was that guy who designed ATM skimmer devices (Cha0) who kidnapped and beat a guy suspected of being an informant.

Interesting how fast DPR slid into gangsterism guess it comes with the territory of running an online cartel

Woody Harrelson's father is (was) a convicted hitman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Harrelson

They do get caught, once in a while.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2435718/Ex-Army-vet-... http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/27/3655150/police-hollywo... https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newss...

Agreed.

Seems like the power got to him, made him a bit delusional...

Do any of you actually believe any of this shit? Do you realize what level of distraction we're likely reading at this point? Keep a healthy dose of skepticism for the next few weeks until everything settles down. The authorities are probably not going to be releasing the truth if they still have the means to catch other criminals in the same way they caught DPR.

Yeah. The second hand things I've heard about drug busts tell me that the steps are generally:

1) Cops have a pretty good suspicion who it is

2) Cops falsify evidence to get search warrant

3) Search warrant executed, they have the drugs, go to trial with the drugs

This case seems to be a little more outlandish than most, though.

You read too much goddamn internet if you think that's how things "generally" go down.

Stories I heard on the matter were not on the internet -- next you'll tell me that police would never lie on the stand?

(really not hating on police here, I know it's a tough job)

I personally know a guy who almost went down for manslaughter which the police knew he couldn't have committed (he had been arrested for something minor on the other side of the country at the about same time the incident occurred). It took him about a year and a half to clear his name even though the police had documentation proving he couldn't have been there. They wanted him to go down for it that bad. They also beat him during questioning and tried to pressure him into a confession. He's a real quiet harmless guy too... So... There is NO WAY I'd trust the police.

There is difference between "police would never" and police "generally" falsifying evidence.

Ok, fine, we'll never know the proportions. But you can get a confidential informant to say whatever you want for $100, and that can be enough for a search warrant. Then you don't call the shady CI at trial and work from the bust results instead.

No way to know how common it is, but I could see that method actually being good police work if they're putting away someone who needs to go away.

Cases fall apart if evidence is acquired improperly.

[parallel construction]

The real original evidence is not discussed. Only the (sometimes very "lucky") later stop, suspicion, search.

Yup, fruit of a poisonous tree can be worked around if the DA wants busts enough.

Recent documents, indicating DEA/IRS agents were trained to hide the original surveillance evidence, suggest even the prosecutor might not know the true genesis of a particular bust.

Parallel construction requires you to acquire the same evidence in a lawful manner that is not "tainted" by the inadmissible evidence. If they cannot find admissible means to accomplish this, they cannot use the evidence in court.

It's not some magical way to make up evidence like some seem to think.

You're right, the police lying is the magical way that evidence is made up. None of the police have a problem with it, anymore.

Once they know for sure they'll find something, it's easy to bootstrap a stop and search from "little white lies", about subjective or unverifiable things. (The car was 'erratic'; there was a 'smell'.) The lies no longer have any risk, when they're only used to set up sure things.

After the search hits paydirt, the petty fabrications used as a cover story to create probable cause seem credible, and the perp's denials flimsy and self-interested. And since the prosecutors and courts only ever hear the surface story – the original illegal evidence is never revealed to them – they don't even know they're looking at a "parallel construction".

I definitely don't believe that "parallel construction" should become the norm.

But at the same time, I have faith in the decision the federal appellate courts (you could claim that's naive, but I do).

In the long term, I hope that any parallel means to make "admissible" evidence unallowed should be excluded. But until that is legally determined, I honestly do support common law / American jurisprudence. And if people continue to make their opinion heard, I believe that it will change.

My father is an attorney who works for city and county governments. My grandfather is a state judge. I don't claim that either of them exceptional to the current debate, but I strongly believe that jurisprudence will evolve similarly to public opinion.

If I've learned anything, it's that both of my family members honestly try to prioritize their government oversight/trial work over personal opinions. To the point of of heated arguments with my family and I.

And I'm not a lawyer, so I cannot refute several of their constitutional arguments. But I similarly can't effectively argue against their options in "traditional" cases.

I will say without qualification that many cases can only be fairly adjudicated with seemingly "neutral" opinion. And that any opinions about transparency or openness put current law is not necessarily worthwhile. I may not agree with their logic, but I respect the judicial precedent.

For that reason, I hope far more pressure is placed on Congress than the Judiciary ( since one can define standards, and the other must obey the higher court decisions) for a fast-changing, judicial change. (really, I'm waiting for the next generation of judges to set the points of discussion).

Also, two words: Confidential Informant.

This is a worthwhile article to take a look at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE...

thats great TV watching you got there

This information is all months old though. Some of it more than a year old. I mean, I don't know if we're getting the unadulterated truth or not, but it isn't like they just discovered all this yesterday. They've had time to take it and run with it.

You think the DOJ invented an entire murder-for-hire scheme with an undercover cop in a federal indictment because they're intent on convincing message board nerds to distrust Bitcoin?

The are less-probable sounding things in the news these days.

I'm pretty much in favor of drug legalization, and I believe that the vast majority of people imprisoned on drug charges should be free, but it does not follow that everyone who distributes drugs is therefore innocent. To the contrary, practically everyone involved in large-scale trafficking is human scum. That's part of the reason I support legalization, to put these fucks out of a job.

So, yeah, I don't trust the government much, but I still have no trouble believing that a drug kingpin, online or off, is a murdering dirtbag.

I love how you think we are being incredibly naive because we believe that the evidence provided to the court system is in fact real.

That's actually one of the reasons the story doesn't add up for me. It just doesn't seem like reasonable behavior for a bright guy. Plus, the whole thing is just too neat. Reads like it's straight out of Hollywood.

Odd too that the other alleged ordered hit hasn't yet been verified by authorities, but the details around it are supposedly so well-documented and clear. So, we have all of this specific info about it, but somebody's not willing to sign off on the allegations?

I have no hard facts with which to contradict the story here, and this is certainly not to proclaim anyone's innocence. Only to say that something feels off with this.

This is what people said about Hans Reiser.

Yeah, I am sure there are a number of "suspected" people of whom this can be said. Some of them were guilty. Some not.

In any event, when I wrote that it seemed unreasonable for a bright guy, I didn't mean that smart people don't do bad things. I meant that it seems to have been an incredibly stupid way of going about it in this case.

Intellect and commons sense are not always included in the same package. And a lot of the person's perception is shaped by popular culture anyway.

And made other stupid mistakes all over the place anyway.

>Thomas Ptacek's First Rule Of Internet Violent Crime

What are rules two through six?

Cardio, Beware of bathrooms, Seatbelts, Double tap, and No Attachments.

That sounds familiar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI_JONTVVuE

Double tap is for those with bad aim. Rule #11(a) is Conserve Ammo. Rule 10(a)is learn how to aim.

Quite a few people survive being shot, even in the head.

"Always put one in the brain."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfZTzcDFZ98 (graphic)

The next business model will be LinkedIn for criminals, complete with recruiter spam.

Your friend just endorsed you for: Hitman skills.

The indictment is much better than the article.

An undercover agent posing as a smuggler, wants to unload 10 kilos. DPR sets him up with a major silkroad vendor who is also an employee. The undercover agent sends the drugs, and arrests DPR's employee. DPR doesn't realize that he was responsible for getting the employee arrested, and then hires the undercover agent to kill his ex-employee.

Reading the alleged DPR dialog I can't help thinking this guy thought he was some Walter White character. Or maybe I just have Breaking Bad on the brain...

It is more like the making of Breaking Bad. The FBI staged torture photos of DPR's ex-employee. I imagine Jesse's makeup artist went from his day job to the FBI.

What is funny, is DPR got away with the murder for hire plot. They tried to set him up by making him do a bank transfer. After having seen the photo's, the undercover agent thought he would send the money non-anonymously, but DPR used some now defunct Australian anonymous wire service. It took the FBI several months to locate him.

> After having seen the photo's, the undercover agent thought he would send the money non-anonymously

"Oh hey, you're a violent thug who murders people for money? I'm a random guy running a billion dollar underground drug marketplace. Here's my contact info..."

After seeing the photos, I'd be absolutely sure to send the money anonymously.

You are right. I was thinking of a payment that would be untraceable by a hitman, but traceable by the FBI. The payment method he used was not traceable by either.

The Feds were waiting to find out what happened to Walter White before they decided what to do with DPR.. timing is impeccable.

It makes one wonder how the conversation went about scheduling this.

Are pop culture events a consideration to get favorable results from judges and grand juries?

As someone that served on a federal grand jury, no. Well, at least not vocally, I presume people internally weren't basing their votes on pop culture but saying something else out loud. Then again the strength of most cases that make it to the grand jury, from what I saw, are fairly strong, and the burden of proof is lower (since indictment != conviction). If the case is weak the ADA's wouldn't even bring it to us.

Perhaps I wasn't clear: gambits by the DA or defense based on timing of world / cultural events (beyond holidays, weekends and lunch) to garner a favorable state-of-mind of adjudicators.

Grand juries sit for 18 months, so that would be one hell of a long game.

If the stakes are high enough, ...

There is, iirc, also a time limit between when an investigation begins and one an indictment is filed. The idea being to prevent the government from simply having someone under investigation in perpetuity. I suppose the ADAs COULD try and time the indictment against unrelated pop-culture events, but in my experience it seems so unlikely as to be mostly the stuff of movies. Delays more frequently where due to problems getting financial records or untangling complex webs of them, problems locating willing witnesses, problems with witness intimidation, etc..

Combining this with the other alleged hit dialog, it paints a picture of a rising criminal's initially uneasy embrace of killing, followed later by a scene where he's literally haggling with a hit man over the market rate for murder. It definitely shares the show's theme of gradual moral acclimation.

Wow! So his claim in the other indictment wasn't just a silly negotiating tactic. And he admitted his involvement to another person solely to try to save a few bitcoins when he allegedly had $80 million worth in his account! An amount so large that he would be lucky to be able to launder even a tiny fraction (even if he bought a car wash or laser tag arena).

This guy has been watching too many TV shows. He's actually lucky he got caught before he was on the receiving end of violent antics like his. The Walter Whites of the real world don't have a life full of adventures outsmarting criminals and staying one step ahead of the cops. They live desperately on edge until they make a small misstep that gets them thrown in prison or killed.

I live in Mexico and I have seen facebook profiles of guys wearing their insert any kind of organized crime organization related to drugs "uniform". Like its just there, its listed as their job sometimes, too. Like, granted not all people that list it actually do it. But still, can you imagine just doing a regular search on Facebook and having hundreds of people to arrest?

War on drugs my ass. Use of NSA privacy-breaking technology to fight "the bad guys" my ass.

Why would DPR hire a smuggler?

Why would DPR delete the photo evidence, but not the chat log evidence?

Are there transactions in the blockchain that represent the payment? Can we find them?

Is this part of the story something that can feasibly be made up after the fact?

Was SR a voluntary exchange with no victims, and for DPR to do real time, would some charge like this have had to have been found?

Edit: I'm not necessarily saying I believe he's innocent, but this part of the story seems so strange to me that I really think these questions are worth asking.

For question #5, at least, the answer is "definitely not". The feds have never had the slightest bit of trouble putting completely non-violent friendly neighborhood dealers away for decades.

some one in r/silkroad posted a block chain transaction link that seemed like the payment you are talking about.. around 1670BTC. i went there but the silkroad subreddit is made private not..

but luckily i found the blockchain link in my history..

http://blockchain.info/en/tx/4a0a5b6036c0da84c3eb9c2a884b6ad...

Does anyone believe it?

I would need to see a lot more proof... remember that Julian Assange of Wikileaks was accused of rape in an attempt to discredit him.

Is there some evidence that vindicates Julian Assange that I'm unaware of? If not, how do you know the accusations aren't valid?

Is there some evidence that says that god is not real?

That's not really a great argument... the burden of proof is on the person claiming it.

the burden of proof is on the person claiming it.

And where might they present their proof? Perhaps in court, in a trial? Like the sort of trial they tried to have, before Assange fled, preventing a trial?

That someone evaded having evidence be brought against them does not qualify as evidence having been brought against them.

Sure, but by the same token you can't claim the lack of a guilty conviction is evidence he's innocent, when he will not stand trial.

Never did. But my point is that evidence of innocence should only be necessary as a counter to evidence of guilt, and if there is no evidence of guilt, one should be considered innocent, at least legaly, even without evidence of innocence. That's the principle of "innocent until proven guilty."

patrickg_zill is making a claim - that the rape accusations are to discredit Assange.

Until proven, they are just accusations, aren't they? His "claim" is regarding motives for the accusations, which really isn't the same thing, is it?

That's kind of sidestepping my point. He said two things:

1) There was a rape accusation

2) The accusation was made to discredit Assange

My statement that "the burden of proof is on the person claiming it" is relevant to both parts individually. Neither the rape accusation or the discredit argument have been proved, therefore judgment should be withheld on both. Just because the second is a claim that hasn't been proven, doesn't mean the first is true.

So do you, or do you not, believe that there was a rape accusation?

Yes there was an accusation, and I don't understand your point in asking.

Edit: getting pedantic with this but oh well. I guess the language "doesn't mean the first is true" was ambiguous. I did not mean to say that #2 being a claim that hasn't been proven meant that #1 may or may not have happened in the first place, I meant to say that #2 being a claim that hasn't been proved does not mean that the accusation itself, which truly was made, was true.

I think we agree! Of course Assange is innocent until proven guilty.

I find it very annoying when people say the rape accusation is fabricated to smear Assange.

Did you read the indictment? Unless they are just making everything up, it's pretty detailed: https://ia601904.us.archive.org/1/items/gov.uscourts.mdd.238...

The indictment alleges that the party contracted to perform the hit was an undercover cop. Generally, when you hire a cop to kill someone, you're prima facie guilty of hiring someone to commit murder, though I suppose there's always some possible mitigating factor like entrapment or falsified evidence. You can be damned sure the police have scrupulously documented their methods and recorded/logged all their interactions with Ulbricht, to address just such charges being raised.

Also, Assange wasn't accused of rape, but a lesser form of sexual assault, defined under Swedish law. Moreover, his counsel has stipulated both that the sex occurred, and that it was unprotected, which is the central issue in the charges, as I understood them. The question isn't whether or not he raped the women (plural!), or even whether or not he had sex with them, but whether or not they asked him to use a condom, and whether or not he refused.

Selective credulity amuses me.

So does this new information validate that this service that provided for the exchange of illegal narcotics was in fact evil and should have been shut down much sooner.

How does this knowledge effect the ongoing debate about digital privacy ?

I'm a lot more concerned about paedophiles using tor to share images of child sexual abuse than I am people using Silk Road to buy very expensive drugs.

> How does this knowledge effect the ongoing debate about digital privacy ?

We need things like tor because governments have demonstrated willingness to break strict controls. More innocent regular people use anonymous or private communications. As a side effect genuinely bad guys have better protection. The blame lies with over-reaching governments, not with the technology.

No, this information is just hearsay. This is a PR campaign by the Obama administration to justify cracking down on Bitcoin and Tor.

Until DPR has tried and convicted we should assume that all reporting on this criminal investigation is lies and slander. I'm not trying to defend DPR, torture, or any of that, but we need to hold ourselves to higher standards.

This kind of news caters directly to us -- the affluent tech crowd -- and we should be especially careful. The submitters of these news articles will need to be closely scrutinized as well.

Oh, get fucked.

What a way to have a debate. Your comment totally proves GP wrong!

In contrast to mbetter, I agree with your assesment.

The Obama administration is so concerned about Bitcoin that they created a fake murder for hire scheme instrumented by a fake undercover cop documented in a federal indictment that supersedes another federal indictment that explicitly says Bitcoin has lawful uses, and is so concerned about Tor that... what, they stopped funding it?

I'm not saying that DPR is innocent, on the contrary. I'm saying that the government will be using this as an opportunity to shout from the highest mountaintops that decentralized systems of currency/information transfer is dangerous.

Of course, those doing the shouting will be the mainstream media -- mouthpieces of the government.

Criminal investigations are one thing, but guiding and manipulating the general populace is something else entirely. Tomorrow we will definitely be seeing lots of news about DPR, Bitcoin, Tor, and drugs -- this situation will be spun to high hell, both for supporting decriminalization and undermining it.

Did you miss the part about how the indictment said the opposite about Bitcoin?

If the media reports that -- despite DPR's unsavoury activities -- BTC has its uses then I will quickly and happily eat crow. I'm expecting the worst tomorrow, especially considering all elements in the situation have very poor reputations (Silk Road, BTC, Tor, Tor hidden services).

So far all I'm seeing is the government saying that they think a guy who ran an underground drug network tried to have people killed. I seriously doubt they care that much about Bitcoin in this instance.

With all the recent events concerning the government in the past couple years, that doesn't seem TOO far fetched.

Sad, really.

It is absolutely too far fetched.

> This is a PR campaign by the Obama administration to justify cracking down on Bitcoin and Tor.

If the US government wanted to "crack down on Tor", they could just stop funding it; the US government created Tor, and has always been the main funder of Tor development.

> Until DPR has tried and convicted we should assume that all reporting on this criminal investigation is lies and slander.

There's healthy skepticism, and there is credulous conspiracy theory. You seem to have opted for the second.

Take out the second sentence and you're good. Otherwise you're guilty of a little hearsay yourself.

Did they really crack down on Tor or did they just compromise the hell out of it?

They captured him using good ole fashioned detective work so... strengthens privacy argument as surveillance isn't needed to catch the bad guy.

"How does this knowledge effect the ongoing debate about digital privacy ?"

Not at all. You cannot encrypt a dead body, or a blood smear, or the fact that someone connected to you has disappeared. This is kind of like asking how the news that the mafia avoids using telephones to conduct their business will affect the debate about privacy in one's home.

The right to privacy will always be use by criminals. That is the price we pay for our civil rights.

Why the @#$@# did they let this guy go free for almost 8 months after this?

It was long enough that he attempted to put out another hit... it looked like a con in retrospect, but someone might actually be _dead_ because of this delay.

What were they thinking?

It's a good question, but I suspect maybe they just thought the risk of this particular alleged attempted hitman-hirer successfully hiring an actual hitman was low. That is, if you have to hire this done, you probably shouldn't. Most who are satisfied with the services of hitmen they've employed, have already killed multiple people themselves, or they're at least plugged into one or more criminal enterprises that utilize violence regularly.

I don't have any particular knowledge of any of the above.

I find the hitman idea rather silly. I will preface this by saying, that I do think there are, in some organized groups, probably such thing as a hitman. A loner, on the internet...don't count on it.

So, you pay $40,000 up front. That's then mine to walk away with. Or heck, I can then threaten to go to the cops unless you give me the other half. You surely wouldn't go to the cops about this little scam, right? You obviously don't have the fortitude or skill to do it yourself or you wouldn't have paid me, so I'm not worried about you coming after me. That would only leave you to hire another nonexistent hitman, to come after me, who would without doubt be a cop or fellow scam artist.

Seems like this isn't a good idea to begin with now, doesn't it?

He paid for it, but for what it's worth, it did not happen. Certainly not a good idea regardless...

I do wonder about the name Dread Pirate Roberts though... I feel there has to be at least one other DPR.

Fictional character in the movie Princess Bride. Also the name of a pirate in the 2004 remake of Sid Meiers Pirates also mentioned the name "Dread Pirate Roberts", or fairly close to where the character Bart Roberts refered to himself as "The dread pirate Bart Roberts".

Right. And if you recall "It is revealed during the course of the story that Roberts is not one man, but a series of individuals who periodically pass the name and reputation to a chosen successor." (edit: from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dread_Pirate_Roberts but you should watch the movie :)

Which story is that in? Not in the linked article unless its being presented a different format for me.

EDIT - Gotcha now. Never watched the movie, just familiar with the name being used a few times.

Princess Bride.

ah, well in that case... Spoiler alert! It was one of my childhood favorites!

Supposedly there has been at least one another person who was the original founder and who was bought out by the dude they arrested. Lemme find sauce.

EDIT:

Here's something http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/meet-th...

In the complaint filed in SDNY, the FBI spends a couple pages detailing the reasons that they believe Silk Road only had one owner, and why the "sale" was just an attempt to confuse people.

Searching for someone called Cummerbund didn't go anywhere.

morally, he is no better than a murderer.. our legal system is consequentialist, so the fact there wasn't a murder downgrades his conviction from actual murder to conspiracy to commit murder.

Somehow I thought it was a known thing, that outside of the movies, if you found a hitman, that is willing to do the deed, he's either a con artist or an officer of the law.

Seriousness aside, this would make one hell of a show. I bet someone is working on a script right now.

I guess using Occam's razor doesn't apply to this case. Because a lot of people seem to be in complete denial about this whole thing.

What's most likely? That he in fact was running the Silk Road and did do these deeds that we see provided as evidence to a court system, or that it was all made up and it's just "too neat", and it was all a grand conspiracy to frame this guy?

This story does not add up. It makes no sense, and I don't believe it.

Another article on this story says that the cops seized $3.6 million worth of bitcoins when closing Silk Road. Wondering what they'll do with all these bitcoins... selling then to crooks or twins?

... And now we have a lead on a Breaking Bad replacement!

Get Netflix producing and Vince Gilligan writing and I will pay for a season upfront.

Please?

what a moron. this guy really thought he could run a cartel from a library without getting his own hands dirty.

I think the whole story will have serious consequences for the poor BitCoin.

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