According to the sealed complaint
filed by the FBI, federal agents arrested Ross William Ulbricht on
Tuesday afternoon, charging him with narcotics trafficking, computer
hacking and money laundering.
The FBI also seized the Silk Road website, replacing its homepage
with a banner noting as much.
Since its 2011 inception, Silk Road has been the
go-to black market for all sorts of illegal products and services. Its
draw? The online marketplace offered an easy way to find goods and
services -- and transact the money in secret. The site had 957,079
registered users, according to the FBI.
The site was operated on an anonymous network known as Tor, making
activity on Silk Road virtually untraceable. The only money accepted on
Silk Road was the digital currency bitcoin, adding an additional layer of anonymity to buyers and sellers.
Over the past two and a half years, the FBI said the site generated
revenue worth more than 9.5 million bitcoins -- valued at $1.3 billion.
The FBI said Ulbricht's net worth was essentially his value in Silk
Road's commissions, which totaled more than 600,000 bitcoins ($85
million).
Silk Road wasn't restricted to illegal drugs. The FBI says it was also
used to trade firearms, hire assassins and employ hackers.
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