At a bail hearing in a New York federal court yesterday, federal prosecutors claimed that Ross Ulbricht, the alleged operator of the Silk Road online marketplace for drugs, had ordered six hits on people he believed had cheated him or knew too much, and that he had amassed a personal fortune of $20 million in Bitcoins.
In a memo to the judge requesting bail for Roberts be denied, prosecutors also claim that Ulbricht — who went by the name "Dread Pirate Roberts"— kept a diary of his finances and assassination orders.
They also filed photographs of multiple driver's licenses that show a photos of Ulbricht but different names on each license.
Ulbricht's mother and supporters say he is innocent:
On Wednesday, supporters also launched a legal defense fundraising campaign, along with a video of testimonials from supporters describing Ulbricht’s character. “Ross is not a criminal mastermind, and Ross is not killer,” says one of Ulbricht’s friends, whose face is not shown in the video.
“I can tell you he’s not a murderer,” Ulbricht’s mother Lyn Ulbricht said ...
The diary begins in 2010, when he first came up with the idea of creating Silk Road using Tor, the anonymous, encrypted version of the internet that makes illicit transactions more secure:
As time went by, Ulbricht allegedly derived the vast majority of his livelihood from running Silk Road. But no one in "real" life knew he was "the Dread Pirate Roberts"— not even his girlfriend. Ulbricht allegedly confessed this fact to an under cover federal agent (UC):
The prosecutors' motion shows Ulbricht believed his net worth was $104 million and he was holding $20 million in Bitcoin:
At the time he was arrested, the feds found these different drivers' licenses at his rented house in San Francisco:
The feds had Ulbricht under surveillance for months, but in 2013 Ulbricht allegedly started hiring contract killers, the court papers claim:
The number of hits Ulbricht allegedly ordered grew over time, so he added the hits to his Silk Road admin "to-do list," on his computer, the feds' motions says. Here's a sample of the list from March 2013 (emphasis added):
- 04/06/2013
made sure backup crons are working
gave angels go ahead to find tony76
cleaned up unused libraries on server
added to forbidden username list to cover I <-> l scam - 04/08/2013
sent payment to angels for hit on tony76 and his 3 associates
. . .
very high load (300/16), took site offline and refactored main and category pages to be more efficient
The first alleged hit was against a Silk Road employee that Ulbricht allegedly felt lacked "integrity":
The motion says that none of the hits actually led to anyone's death — although Ulbricht allegedly believed they had worked.
The second alleged hit was on someone who tried to blackmail him:
Hits four through six were supposed to be on a group of drug dealers Ulbricht allegedly believed had ripped him off. Feds say he hired a Hell's Angel, "redandwhite," to do the work:
The feds also filed this image, which they claim is the administrator's user interface for Silk Road.
