U.S. law enforcement authorities have shut down "Silk Road," an anonymous Internet marketplace for illegal drugs like heroin and cocaine and criminal activities such as murder for hire, and arrested its alleged owner.
The FBI estimates Silk Road’s sales revenue at 9.5 million Bitcoins, with commissions from sales totaling 600,000 Bitcoins—the equivalent (depending on Bitcoin’s fluctuating value) of $1.2 billion in sales and roughly $80 million in commissions.
“Moderators and admins were our main objects,” one law enforcement official says. “We identified some of them. That led to some information to help us understand the inner circle of Silk Road. We also took down drug traffickers and those selling IDs and guns. From there we gained a lot of intelligence about the people involved.”
The real target in their sights, though, was the mysterious Dread Pirate Roberts, the brazen owner and operator of the site who they now say was 29-year-old Ross Ulbricht.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/11/silk-road/Fearing his admin would spill details about their operation, and claiming that the admin also stole money, authorities say Dread Pirate Roberts asked the undercover agent posing as a drug dealer to murder “chronicpain”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...selling-hard-drugs-fake-passports-online.htmlThe darkest corner of the internet: Murky online market selling everything from hard drugs to fake passports is back up and running just WEEKS after it was shut down in massive FBI bust
Dotini said:Sorry, but the dailymail is not credible, and I do not think it is allowed to link to it on this forum.
MarneMath said:For anyone actively involved in TOR or these hidden services, there quite a few theories that the servers (aka the end points) are now accessed and monitored by the NSA. Especially since the last essential DNS attack on these servers contained a plethora of NSA related address, along with the fact the the last malware that infected freedom's server was simply placed to monitor user information from an NSA address.
The Silk Road Shutdown: U.S. Law Enforcement Authorities Act, also known as the "Silk Road Act", is a law that was passed by the U.S. government in 2013 to shut down the illegal online marketplace known as the Silk Road.
The purpose of this act was to combat illegal activities such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and other criminal activities that were taking place on the Silk Road website.
The act resulted in the shutdown of the Silk Road website and the arrest of its founder, Ross Ulbricht. The website's assets were also seized by the U.S. government.
The Silk Road Shutdown: U.S. Law Enforcement Authorities Act was significant in showing the government's ability to shut down illegal activities on the internet and hold those responsible accountable for their actions.
The Silk Road Shutdown: U.S. Law Enforcement Authorities Act can be considered successful as it achieved its main objective of shutting down the Silk Road website and disrupting illegal activities. It also served as a deterrent for future illegal online marketplaces.