Eileen Ormsby - Silk Road

About Silk Road

It was the eBay of drugs.

A BILLION DOLALR EMPIRE.

Behind it, an FBI Most Wanted Man,

the enigmatic crime czar

DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS.

SILK ROAD lay at the heart of the Dark Web a parallel internet of porn, guns, assassins and drugs. Lots of drugs. With the click of a button LSD, heroin, meth, coke, any illegal drug imaginable, would wing its way by regular post from any dealer to any user in the world. How was this online drug cartel even possible? And who was the charismatic mastermind all its low roads led to?

This is the incredible true story of Silk Roads rise and fall, told with unparalleled insight into the main players including alleged founder and kingpin Dread Pirate Roberts himself by lawyer and investigative journalist Eileen Ormsby.

A stunning crime story with a truth that explodes off the page.

Contents

PART THREE The Fall

To Matt. Because you have always been my hero.

A Word from the Dread Pirate Roberts

G reetings and welcome to Silk Road!

I know you cant wait to get to the good stuff, but please take a moment to read this message. Its been written to help keep you safe, make the most of your time here and let you know what this is all about.

Lets start with the name. The original Silk Road was an old-world trade network that connected Asia, Africa and Europe. It played a huge role in connecting the economies and cultures of these continents and promoted peace and prosperity through trade agreements. It is my hope that this modern Silk Road can do the same thing, by providing a framework for trading partners to come together for mutual gain in a safe and secure way.

You may be shocked to find listings here that are outlawed in your jurisdiction. That doesnt mean Silk Road is lawless. In fact, we have a very strict code of conduct that, if given a chance, most people I think would agree with. Our basic rules are to treat others as you would wish to be treated, mind your own business, and dont do anything to hurt or scam someone else. In the spirit of those rules, there are some things you will never see here, and if you do please report them. They include child pornography, stolen goods, assassinations and stolen personal information, just to name a few. We also hold our members to the highest standards of personal conduct and work tirelessly to prevent, root out and stop any scammers that may try to prey upon others.

However, the best way to stay safe and make sure your experiences here are enjoyable is to educate yourself on how Silk Road works, and take advantage of all the tools and guidelines we have made for you. A link to a complete guide can be found on your account page, but here are a few tips to get you started:

• Always use the escrow system! This cant be stressed enough. 99% per cent of scams are from people who set up fake vendor accounts and ask buyers to pay them directly or release payment before their order arrives. This behaviour should be reported immediately. If you do choose to do this, we will be completely unable to help you in the event of fraud.
• Read the forum and the wiki. They contain a wealth of information and many in our forum community are eager to help a new member with a respectful attitude.
• Start small. Do a few small trades until you are comfortable with the process before throwing all of your bitcoins at a big purchase.

The old saying With freedom comes responsibility couldnt be more true here. You will find easy access to things that could get you in trouble with your authorities and are downright terrible for your health. So, just because you can doesnt mean you should. However, Im not your daddy and its your job to judge what is good and bad for you. No one else can do that.

Stay safe, have fun, and come say hi on the forums!

Your faithful servant,

Dread Pirate Roberts

A Word from the Dread Pirate Roberts

from the landing screen of the Silk Road website

Prologue

T he computer screen displays a bewildering array of drugs. Colourful pictures of powders and pills in various quantities offer inducements to buy: Border-proof delivery! Ten per cent extra on orders over 5 grams! Underneath each picture is a price, using an unfamiliar currency symbol.

Scrolling down the green-and-white page, a potential customer might click on heroin from Canada, crystal meth from Australia or LSD from the Czech Republic. Once a choice is made, another click adds them to the checkout basket, ready to be shipped. Just like on Amazon.

In the top left-hand corner of the screen a strange symbol like a capital B with two lines through it, reminiscent of an American dollar sign displays the users account balance in bitcoin.

A German seller calling himself Jurgen2000 is offering MDMA, the powder form of ecstasy. Clicking on the listing reveals Jurgen has a great reputation. His feedback is full of praise for his prices, quality and delivery times.

A savvy Silk Road user uses PGP (pretty good privacy) encryption to encrypt the delivery address to Jurgen. Once installed, with a couple of clicks PGP can change any block of text into a long paragraph of indecipherable gibberish that will be unreadable to all but Jurgen, who will have the private key to crack the code to return it to normal text. Anyone who managed to seize the Silk Road servers would not be able to get the buyers name and address from that order. Not even the Silk Road administrators could unscramble the information.

Within a few hours of an order being placed, Jurgen marks the delivery as in transit and sends the buyer a cheery message saying that the order is on its way.

Please, Jurgen writes, if there is any problem, send me a message before complaining to admin or in the forums. We should be able to work it out without the need to go to resolution.

Depending on where you are in the world from Jurgen, a few days later a nondescript white envelope bearing a German postmark and the return address of a real estate agent arrives. Folded within a couple of pieces of paper that are blank except for 1M typed on one of them, is a vacuum-sealed pack of a brownwhite powder.

The buyer tests the ecstasy either using a reagent purity-testing kit, or the old-fashioned way: ingesting it. Then it is a matter of logging in to the site through Tor, the program that provides anonymity, and finalising the order by releasing the funds from escrow into Jurgens account. The site then ask the buyer for feedback, and Jurgen always gets five out of five.

Hes a polite seller on the other side of the world, eager to provide good service to ensure he maintains his five-star rating and receives repeat custom.

Welcome to a new era of drug dealing.

Part One

Onionland

Silk Road Charter

S ilk Road is a global enterprise whose purpose is to empower people to live as free individuals. We provide systems and platforms that allow our customers to defend their basic human rights and pursue their own ends, provided those ends do not infringe on the rights of others.

Our mission is to have voluntary interaction between individuals be the foundation of human civilization.

We conduct ourselves and our enterprise from the following fundamental values that are at the heart of who we are:

Self-ownership

Individuals own their bodies, thoughts and will. Anything they create with their property or obtain without coercion is also theirs.

Responsibility

People are responsible for their actions. If one infringes on anothers rights, the victim has the right to defend themselves.