Someone recently asked me to do a people of the Silk Road darknet drugs market - Where Are They Now update, so here it is in a Tweetstorm. Buckle in, it’s going to be a long one - a thread #darkweb#darknet#silkroad#wherearetheynow
1. Dread Pirate Roberts - Ross Ulbricht - founder/owner/admin - serving 2 life sentences plus 40 years at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson AZ. He has exhausted all appeals and his only hope to ever get out of prison is a Pres Pardon. Tweets under @RealRossU
2. Variety Jones - Roger Clark - DPR’s Mentor/snr adviser - currently in hospital due to serious injuries following a fall from his bunk at New York’s MDC. Was extradited to the US from Thai prison and is due to be sentenced April 1. justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/s…
3. Inigo - Andrew Jones - 2IC/“First Mate” and US moderator - agreed to turn State evidence against DPR in return for leniency. Was kept in limbo for several years and never required to testify. Sentenced to 6 years and is due out April next year from FCI Cumberland MD
4. Libertas - Gary Davis - European moderator - fought extradition from Ireland all the way to the High Court but failed. Sentenced July 2019 to 78 months in FCI Hazelton. Due out next January
5. 5. SSBD - Pete Nash - Australian moderator - was extradited to the US early on, but was sentenced to time served (18 months) and returned to Australia a free man in 2015 eileenormsby.com/2015/05/27/sil…
6. Chronicpain - Curtis Green - early moderator and DPR’s “murder victim” - was sentenced to time served and is back home. Wrote a book. Tweets under @ilovepoker goodreads.com/book/show/4116…
7. Nomad Bloodbath - name withheld - an early moderator and the first staff member to be compromised - still selling those skulls on his website
8. Scout - name withheld - the only female moderator - account was compromised and taken over by DHS Jared Der-Yeghiayan, she avoided prison, and is apparently living the quiet life. JDY renamed the account… eileenormsby.com/2013/12/23/sil…
9. Cirrus - JDY - mod of Silk Road - was asked to moderate Silk Road 2.0 and stayed on payroll until it was taken down a year later when everyone finally discovered he was really an undercover agent. Now seems to have gone into private industry doing cybercrime stuff
10. Shabang - Michael Weigand - adviser, programmer and technical admin - surrendered himself in 2020 and was imprisoned for telling fibs about working with Clark (IRL) and DPR. Released last December. Confusion about whether this Shabang is OG ~shabang justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/c…
11. DoctorX - Fernando Caudevilla - original Doctor to the Dark Web, offered free medical advice to Silk Road customers. No apparent legal consequences. Still doing good work in his home country. Unlikely to visit the US after being called “despicable” by Ulbricht’s judge
12. Redandwhite - alleg James Ellingson - convinced DPR he was a HA hitman who would take out DPR’s enemies. Carried out 5 “hits” on people who apparently never existed. Arrested in Canada in Nov 2018, seems to have fallen off the face of the earth eileenormsby.com/2018/11/22/the…
13. Nob - Carl Mark Force - corrupt DEA agent on Silk Road taskforce used a variety of usernames to extort and bribe DPR collecting 1200 #Bitcoin for his troubles. As “Nob”, faked Chronicpain’s murder. Sentenced to 6.5 years in 2015, released October 2020 arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20…
14. Sean Bridges - corrupt Secret Service agent on Silk Road taskforce who used staff logins to empty the accounts of SR vendors into his own pocket. Helped fake Chronic’s murder. Got 6 years in 2015, and a further 2 years in 2017, released Oct 2021 bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/inside…
15. Alpacino - a third rogue agent, originally thought to be another ‘nym of Force or Bridges, but apparently not. Never apprehended as far as we know eileenormsby.com/2017/04/23/som…
16. DPR2 - Thomas White - took over as DPR after Ulbricht’s arrest. Arrested for running Silk Road 2.0 and having child abuse images. Jailed in the UK for 5 years in 2019, recently ordered to cough up more #bitcoin liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool…
17. Defcon - Blake Benthall - chief admin of Silk Road 2.0 until it’s bust - charged in Nov 2014, but he is not (and never seems to have been) incarcerated and nobody seems to know where he is fbi.gov/contact-us/fie…
18. IndividualX - stole a few grand from Silk Road and last year handed it in to the authorities when it was worth $1.2bn. According to his lawyer Adam Gasner, it was to ensure he could remain a free man. Possibly one of the above people gasnerlaw.com/uploads/AModer…
That's the best of my memory at the moment, there are loads more minor characters, and probably some I've forgotten. Let me know if you have any further news about anyone /end thread
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I went and looked at my Scrivener file for the outline of "Silk Road" I wrote to pitch to publishers in 2012. This was my note for what was supposed to be the last chapter
I got the book deal, but boy did the story change over the course of the next few months when I was writing it!