Silk rOaD and the sTupIdiTy of hUmAniTy 😈

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
So you build a up.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
And you're a libertarian, and you're like, hey, I believe
as a libertarian all drugs should be legal. So what
I'm gonna do is create a marketplace. And the first
product I'm going to sell is the magic Mushroom.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Blood group myself. So then.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Again, the brefence of the site is the freedom of
drug sales, in which he tells.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
His girlfriend, who was already initially in those capicals.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Saying this is seeming a little iffy. He's like, it's
gonna be fine. She's like, it's not. So Then as
he scales the business, they begin to sell things such
as coke, ecstasy, and heroin, and she's like, we may

(01:14):
have gone too far because I already said I was
concerned at the beginning. Now you're sitting to saying everything
gonna be all right. She's like, it's heroin.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
We've crossed the line.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
It's been twenty eleven, so can only imagine slightly similar
are selling fentanyl or fennel deliver derivatives, God help them.
So I'm more so shocked that heroin wasn't the first

(01:49):
thing to put on there. There's a lot of things
that come to question, as in you've decided to create
an anonymous drug sanctuary, and you're shocked.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
That the government would.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Have pushedback about heroine being put on there. Again, a
lot of the other ones you may be able to
kind of sort of justify in some way, shape or
form of them being party drugs.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
To be abundantly clear, all of.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
This is absolutely illegal, and he knows it. He is
in America. It is the twenty tens. He is not
an idiot. He coded the site himself. He's a libertarian.

(02:44):
He said drugs should be legal, so he knows that
this is illegal. And again his sonhow shocked? Oh they
posted heroin?

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Now, now.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
What part of open drug market? Okay, Baltimore tried it.
Everybody's ugly skined road, did it? They've isolated them. Open
drug markets do they work?

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Now the question is what do you want the end result.

Speaker 4 (03:22):
To be.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
If you wanted to be a bunch of zombies. Absolutely,
open drug markets will work.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Mind again, when.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
We are talking about drugs, I have no idea why
people keep saying heroins there and other heroines, the enhanced
versions you know, morphine and morphine.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Again used to be at the top of the food chain.
No longer.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
We now have oxy and oxy used to be at
the top of the food chain.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Nope, now we have FANTO.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
So he created an open drug market internationally connected and
was surprised that a it got the fed's attention. Sir,

(04:28):
say you won't heat without saying you created an open.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Online drug promoted it in forums again.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
OPSEC is a thing I thought everybody in the CyberWorld
lord operational security, as in, you're making sure that you
were not fugging up and showing that you were doing
what you're doing, i e. You keep yourself safe keeping,

(05:00):
protecting your privacy, and you're generally using just general cybersecurity, safety,
hygiene and shit making sure everything.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Is in place with that z.

Speaker 5 (05:11):
The boy created an online underground drug market that could
be accessed by anybody in the world and.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Told his girlfriend, gird, you are reacting to this souther here.
She's like what. She's like, you don't know where it's from.
He's like, piss, posh, what the fuck are you even
talking about?

Speaker 3 (05:41):
Sir?

Speaker 1 (05:44):
What again? He called it? Silk Road say you won't to.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Get in bed with the CCP or PRC without saying it, sir.
Silk Road was the underground round world of China. Instead
of moving slaves, it was moving product.

Speaker 6 (06:06):
I was.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
What product? Are you moving? Drugs?

Speaker 2 (06:14):
That was your initial one. You said to buy and
sell anonymously. The governor said, oh, that's cool. I don't
like target track of my transaction or Walmart heroin what
I mean, not heroin mushrooms? I mean, I guess that's fine,
But what else is the premise of what you're selling
on the website. Oh, I'm gonna make it an open

(06:36):
drug market. She looked at him and said, do you
not see any issues with this in the future. He's like,
it's freedom. She's like, it's not. It's indictment. But go
ahead and continue. What are we talking about right now?
She showed concerns, concerns and told her the whole planet

(06:57):
is doing this.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
South excited. She said, absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
She said, this is probably the dumbest idea, and I
know where you're going to end up.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
He's like you being a wet blanket. She said, bitch,
what the hell are you talking about.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
You're creating an open drug market to be connected internationally,
in which all identities of the uploaders are anonymous. He's like,
what's the problem. She said, say what I just said
back to me, Like what the fuck are we even
talking about right now? Like that's an active guess, like
like not like baby, I'm gonna start selling on the corner,

(07:33):
Like babe, So I'm about to open up a house
where like all the drug dealers can like collaborate, and
we're gonna make sure that there's arm guard in front
of and bars on the window.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
And she's staring at him.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
He says what he's like, She's like, you don't see
anything in you see you find out you don't even.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
See the ending of this, do you. He's like, what
are you talking about? It's like, what are we talking word?
She's like, sir, you need to search what rico is.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Like again, it's when chargers start compounding up to It's
like mortgage fraud.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
You start with one line and then you have to
add that lie to other documents.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Then when you start adding to actually black and white documents,
then somehow you get rico because you not only doing
mortgage fraud, you're now.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Doing tax fraud.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
That's how they stacking on people. People say, how them
off and everybody get jacked up tax fraud? No, you'all
life in hah, tax fraud, that's not it. You move
and sloppy, you know, you move, have millions of dollars,
and then the IRS is saying we have not seen
any of these moneies at all. You could shut the

(08:47):
fuck up, pay it and disappear, or you could be
stupid and keep spending frivolously and pretending that these people
are not watching.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
With that said, unmarked, start in Baltimore.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Now, because the thing about being invisible is that you
know how not how visible people are who will try
to be invisible, such as law enforcement. The law enforcement
generally drives giant SUVs with lights in the head rest
and little daggle and and the dagonal spotlight on the

(09:22):
dagon on the rare view mirror on the millionaires. Was
it the ones on the mirrors that you're seeing closer
than reviews or whatever?

Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, sie mirrors.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, so sideview mirrors always have like the spotlights on
you has some telling. So anytime you see a vehicle
with that is either a nigga, right, so it's so
so it's either a nigga who bought an old crown
vict in which you'll probably see there was no police

(10:01):
insignia at all. Anywhere and everything is rusted. So there's
that a niggo but oldfathera same thing.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Or if it looks somewhat new, it is likely.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
And the tags are not within the state that they're resided,
So what gave it away? Besides all that without Virginia tags,
I'm like, gotcha, bitch, you ain't got no business here
with that because there's no jurisdiction on less.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
So Donald Jejoseph Vat Trump has now pulled the card
of both.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
The Maryland governor and mayor because they kept talking shit.
I've been telling them, shut the fuck up.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
This.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
The Governor's gonna say, Donald Trump, if you're a real man,
come walk through the city of Baltimore with me. First
of all, stop you won't walk through the city of
Baltimore by yourself, because why would you.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
You're the governor.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
I understand this, But weird flex brh, really weird flex,
especially knowing how Baltimore looks and knowing that Baltimore PD
don't do a damn thing because of funding based on you.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
You're the governor. We are a lot of funds where
needs to be.

Speaker 7 (11:33):
No, you're not.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
The cops have said this.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
MARIYLN Mosby is on the taxpayers down right now, and
you ain't said nothing about this woman. He keep thinking,
we forget listen, Pepper's farm remembers, and so do I
get your shit together and stop stop bothering people, but
batter this vote, all right, you're talking about I created
a drug enterprise at by accident and wonder why his

(12:01):
girl was offended?

Speaker 6 (12:02):
That gonna die cars They killed millions every year. And
so to Ross the idea of a marketplace where people
could buy and sell wherever they wanted. It was not
just a business to potentially make a lot of money.
In his view, it was also a way to free
people and help the world. After some research, Ross discovered
there was a web browser called Tour which allowed you
to access the dark Web where you couldn't be tracked

(12:22):
for trace. The Tour browser was actually developed by the
US Navy as a way to communicate.

Speaker 8 (12:27):
Privately on the Internet by concealing a user's real life.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
He had in Cort, I'm gonna craze some and say
it loudly. He shut the fuck up, as mine, his
vote counts as much as mine.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
Herein lies the issue.

Speaker 9 (12:48):
I cannot I.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Can what these are the people Listen, I keeps it.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Listen them repeal the Nineteenth repeal the right to vote
by the common man.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
Like if you.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
I think if you say more than two stupid statements
within three minutes, you're.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
Not allowed to vote. Like you shouldn't have the right
to come out the house.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
You said, I got an idea, does make it an
over drug market?

Speaker 1 (13:19):
His high friend says, that's a dumb idea. We could
get caught.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
He's like, nope, I'm gonna do it on the anonymous
tour browser. He said, So, what you're saying is that
you're going to create a marketplace for drugs where everybody
can anonymously post all the drugs and people get buy
and so drugs freely.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
He said, Yes, that's the American dream. Friends smoke the weed.
It's not.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Nobody in America has ever said we should build an
anonymous drug market where people such as I don't know
the parsing the cartel.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Terrorists in the Middle.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
East Al Qaeda isis you know where heroin comes from?
You See, That's why I think it's problematic that people
don't know geography, because I think they need to realize
that there is an actual jihad on America in the

(14:26):
form of drugs, specifically heroin, because you'll be abundantly clear.
Do terrorists take heroin and other things made of poppies? Absolutely,
that's why they bulletproof. With that said, are we to

(14:51):
believe that the synthesized from the ground poppies are the
same as the process shit that y'all are getting on
zilk road app Absolutely not. So would people who say
death to America the Big Satan possibly make sure that
that heroin that is processed.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
By the people who hate you?

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Say I'm going to go into this online drug market
anonymously and sell it anonymously because we know Americans will
literally shoot up anything for our cheap price anonymously. And again,
this is targeting a certain crowd because you have to

(15:39):
be of a certain ilk to even know what bitcoin is.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
But never were.

Speaker 6 (15:52):
Address an identity by using this Rush realized people would
be able to buy things online without the government being
able to.

Speaker 8 (15:57):
See what they were doing.

Speaker 6 (15:59):
But at first Ross didn't go any further with the
idea because there was no way to accept payments.

Speaker 8 (16:03):
Online but couldn't easily be traced.

Speaker 6 (16:05):
For example, credit cards would keep a log of every
transaction someone made and be linked to their bank accounts.
So for a little while, the site remained just an
idea in Ross's mind until the summer of twenty ten,
when Ross came across a new technology called bitcoin, a
digital currency which could be transferred anonymously, thus allowing people
to buy whatever they wanted without a trace. It was
exactly what they needed, so from his bedroom, Ross began

(16:28):
working on his new online marketplace. He decided to call
it Silk Road, named after a famous trade route that
started over two thousand years ago that people used for
centuries to carry all kinds of different goods. Understandably, Ross
was very wary of anyone knowing about the side he
was building, which unfortunately meant he had to build it
all by himself. The only person he told at first
was his girlfriend, Julia. Now, his girlfriend was a little concerned,

(16:52):
but Ross reassured her that thanks to the tour.

Speaker 8 (16:54):
Web browser and Bitcoin, it would all be.

Speaker 6 (16:56):
Completely anonymous, so nothing could be traced back to him.
As for making the site itself, it was slow work
to figure everything else, as building an entire online marketplace
by himself was a massive job, but Ross was determined
and he worked very long hours to make it a reality,
sat at his laptop coding all day and most of
the nights he would just occasionally take a break to
watch one of his favorite shows, Breaking Bad, the story

(17:17):
of a normal guy who becomes a drug kingpin. However,
as Ross was finally nearing completion of the Silk Robe sites,
he realized he had a problem. He needed some products
to actually sell on his new marketplace. It was no
use building the platform if when people first came there
was nothing to buy. So Ross rented out a building
in the middle of nowhere and began growing his own
magic mushrooms using a book that was essentially a dummies guide,

(17:38):
the Building your Own Mushroom Farm. This would be the
first product to ever be sold on the Silk Road marketplace.
By early twenty eleven, after a year of work on
the sites, he was ready to launch it to the world.
He'd added categories for all different types of drugs.

Speaker 8 (17:51):
To begin with, the only item listed was the.

Speaker 6 (17:53):
Mushrooms he'd grown himself, but the plan was that sellers
from all over the world would list their own items
for sale. Of course, to attract both buyers and sellers
to the sites, he needed to promote sets. Remember sites
on the dark Web are not picked up by search engines,
and it's also not like Ross could just run some
Facebook or Google ads to help find customers for his
illegal marketplace. So to get a word out about his

(18:14):
new sites, Ross went onto several Internet forums to spread
the words. For example, he joined a site called the
Shroomery for fans of shrooms and made a post pretending
to be a customer interested in using Silk road The
reason he did this was so it didn't seem like
he was promoting his own websites. He knew that by
casually name dropping silk Roade, people on the forums would
go and check it out for themselves, and they did.
Orders soon started coming in. Now, this was all happening

(18:36):
at the beginning of twenty eleven, and at the same time,
Ross was working at a little bookstore in Texas called
Good Wacom Books. But this worked out really well because
it meant Ross had everything he needed to easily ship
out his shrooms because he was able to use the
bookshop's padded envelopes and label maker. He also used a
vacuum sealer that normally would keep food fresh to wrap
the mushrooms up.

Speaker 8 (18:54):
So Ross was in.

Speaker 6 (18:55):
Business, and it was initially shipping off orders twice a week,
but as the site's popularity grew through word of mouth,
Ross soon had to start mailing shipments out every day
as more and more orders were coming in. But even
better than that, other people had started selling items on
Silk Road. Other dealers had created their own listings with
everything from weed to cope to ecstasy, and of course,
more products for sale helped attract even more buyers, and

(19:17):
Silk Roade initially took a six point two to three
percent commission on every single trade. In order to make
people feel more comfortable using the sites, Ross also built
a rating system where buyers and sellers could review each other,
similar to eBay's feedback system.

Speaker 8 (19:29):
Or Amazon reviews.

Speaker 6 (19:31):
Ross worked tirelessly on the sites and it was constantly exhausted,
but he was also incredibly excited by its growth. When
he first made the sites, he honestly hadn't been sure
if anyone would use it at all, and yet in
just a couple of months he'd already made thousands of
dollars in revenue. He told his girlfriend Juliet about the
progress of the sites, although she was slightly less excited
Julia was concerned by the fact harder drugs were now

(19:52):
being sold on Silk Road, especially when she realized someone.

Speaker 8 (19:55):
Had even started selling heroin on there.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Her dad idea, She's like, this is gone too far.
She's like, boy, someone is selling heroin. He's like, but
it's a free drug market. She says, this, did you hear?

Speaker 1 (20:14):
What the fuck? I just said, someone is selling heroin again.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
It has gone too far. Let us see if he
makes a wise decision, it stops.

Speaker 8 (20:24):
Doubts about the whole thing starts to grow.

Speaker 6 (20:26):
And she asked Ross, what if someone overdoses or sell
us send out stuff that's been tampered with or at
least with something else. Ross confidently reminded her of the
rating system. He said, if someone sells bad drugs, it
gets about rating and no one will buy.

Speaker 10 (20:40):
You get I.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Owed you own a heroin one and a half stars?
What got a bad bad effects?

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Lost an arm and an eye half a star?

Speaker 1 (20:58):
What are we talking about right now? Now?

Speaker 2 (21:01):
You could just give them bad ratings and drive them
off the set.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
You don't make Karac. I were just sweet, I said,
I do. I just was. It just was super sweet,
and I just didn't I was gonna get them a bit.

Speaker 11 (21:14):
But is that why I didn't like that?

Speaker 2 (21:19):
I was like, I was supposed to get some ecstasy
and I got a couple of fitting on tabs.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
Now I'm half dying. One star? What ye make sure
you remember in the ICU right before you check out?

Speaker 2 (21:32):
But I gave him one star because he gave me
bad drugs? Where to person the drug sir? I can't
tell you that.

Speaker 6 (21:42):
Julia simply said, yeah, how are they supposed to give
up bad rating.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
If they're Dad's cooking?

Speaker 1 (21:50):
I just said listen.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
I didn't listen. I am prophetic. I do have premonitions,
and I also know how big you. Doctor says, because
she listened, she attracted dun fact.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Doug, But because you attracted by news he hasn't said.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
Then She's like, yeah, but how the day a girl
doesn't what he gonna do.

Speaker 6 (22:30):
While Silk Road had been growing fairly quickly through word
of mouth, gross started to get crazy once Gorka wrote
an article.

Speaker 8 (22:36):
About the sites.

Speaker 6 (22:37):
Right after that article went live, many other news sites
started writing about Silk Road as well, describing it as
an underground website that lets you buy any drug imaginable,
even Big TV news networks like ABC and NBC began talking.

Speaker 8 (22:49):
About the sites. That's bringing it even more attention.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Thousands of drugs came through the black website called Silk Grown.

Speaker 8 (22:57):
Of course, not all that attention was good.

Speaker 6 (23:00):
Multiple different government agencies were now watching the sides and
beginning to investigate who was running it, but because of
the use of tool a new tracking whoever was behind
it would be extremely difficult. Meanwhile, Ross started working on
self bird full time.

Speaker 8 (23:13):
We have no choice.

Speaker 6 (23:14):
Really, it was going so much quicker than he ever expected.
The site now had hundreds of sellers and thousands of buyers,
and Ross Russ had sold all the mushrooms he'd grown.
He was now making commissions on every sale from the sites.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
As a Mormon, as everyone says in every in every decent.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Movie, and what's the protagonist is sounding legal product could
and run Like the moment you see the Feds they're
putting you on.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
The news at that moment, go away, huh.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
The moment Defeds are like were keeping, We're trying to
find out who's the one who.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
You have somebody write an article about you on dates?

Speaker 1 (24:14):
What the pol you what do you mean now?

Speaker 2 (24:17):
At the time to double down. Let's go full time. No,
let's cut and run. Let's not were putting ourselves and
the Bitchal's attractive in jeopardy.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Because again you are not got hispanically fit feelings, sir.
You just have a lot of potential, which you fucking
with you. But that's it. Yes, you rolling and don't now,
but we all know it is temporary.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
Because you are You're past rico sir for real, Like once.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
You get into facilitation, ye.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
International international, you're gonna have, you have euro Pol, you.

Speaker 1 (24:59):
Got all US agencies.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Cause again I don't know if American people understand or
remember or realize why did you start getting into that?

Speaker 1 (25:13):
You start tapping into other people's you know, like atf.

Speaker 8 (25:25):
We have.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
FBI, you have vocal Police, you have.

Speaker 12 (25:35):
Met that purchase.

Speaker 8 (25:56):
Money rolled in. It was exhilarating.

Speaker 6 (25:58):
But one morning he opened his laptop, I noticed someone
had now listed guns on there was trying to rationalize
that it was American's constitutional right to have a gun,
so this wasn't a problem.

Speaker 8 (26:07):
However, once again, we're now doing art.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Really again, I wasn't trying to bring him there. I'm saying,
what do you open up that ap?

Speaker 3 (26:21):
And I want to say, am a simple fact that.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Drug moves, that automatic weapons are awful ball when now
we get our own born atack.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
You're a Prystal.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
International leader again, you are ship, you are happy and
yet you're not directly doing rout but you built the shop.
You don't have to be upm but doing international drug

(27:02):
cr I mean in the not drug running and we's traffic.
If you are the facilitator, they actually look at that
as work because as you know, because your self you
may not.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
That's suing that participation.

Speaker 12 (27:18):
You probably okay it more more member speak not to
know the after they were grown watching Senia think of
that nature. They have to mastermize type of situation where
if you're gonna mastermind, that's even raps a cause what

(27:47):
are you mastermine?

Speaker 3 (27:48):
Like again, what do you say, I build it not
gon jest is a menu, But.

Speaker 12 (27:54):
That is especially when they massify the thing.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
And what's are they masterified type situation? You don't miss
up the master cony because that is who you going.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
To be booking the vesice take the whole log, take
one too violent, like what are you talking about it?

Speaker 3 (28:13):
Because remember you want to go to mass money. Everything
is off the.

Speaker 12 (28:17):
Guy but premeditation. Once you got free meditations, and anyone.

Speaker 9 (28:22):
Dies in the rap, that means a bad.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
Match for us.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Your fault, gunfire with a fund, the benial doe on there,
your phone, and how.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
The hell would you know?

Speaker 3 (28:35):
That's what said, nobody.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
You want to under the champ If.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
If a child is no listen, if a child of
a senator dies off of the drug that you were
selling on your marketplace, you're done.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
They're like, how can they connect that? Two jumps not
even far?

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Two jumps, because remember if you built the site yourself,
and then you have a little person in the ear
saying this is gone too far, and you're like, they
can't catch us again, multiple entryable exit points. When the
news got, you could have jumped off when you heard
the fans got. You could have jumped off when you

(29:19):
saw a gun was on the site. Could have shut
it down there, we could.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
His justification was, here's America's right to carry firearms? Oh
is an international I don't think that's why I said.
I think it's you can't be American exceptional.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
And not know about how America has contributed to the
international sale of.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
Arms, both governmentally and illegally. Now now can we.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
Debate that the government has been key in giving armor
to terrorists.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
With that said, it is generally sanctioned by somebody, and
people are also there are clauses to these things, and
the guns don't work, so it's good a jam on
and I'm gonna blow up, but that's a secret. But
generally speaking, they're not getting the best of anything, because
why would they. They're gonna get the shit that don't work,

(30:31):
but it's still a gun. With that said, automatic weapons
are only for the military. If you have an automatic
weapon and you're a civilian, they're assuming you got it somehow.
You ain't had no business getting it because unless you're
an armed terrorist group, and that pretty much is the
snitch they want to see who gets it, because if

(30:51):
you have an automatic weapon.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
You're likely link to an armed terrorist group. That's something like,
I don't know why people didn't never catch that trick.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
That of course, if negroes are gonna keep on on
the thing like they drop guns in the hood, and
my response is you niggas was dumb enough to use them.
If we're gonna go off of that narrative, of course
they would do that overseas and give them a bunch
of guns. Would they expect them to use them on us? Yes,

(31:20):
you expecting to using on themselves? Absolutely. With that said,
it's also a good marker that you're affiliated with a
certain group. If you were in possession of this, and
if you can't being in possession of it, it's gonna
be two outcomes, death or torture or delayed them death

(31:42):
or dey, which is torture typically. But this fool, being
an American drug addict, is gonna say hey, I'm gonna
grow mushrooms and open up a free market to buy
and sell drugs. Immediately guns were put on there, and
he's like, it's American right, he could have.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
More happy say yes for good.

Speaker 10 (32:09):
Very much.

Speaker 8 (32:12):
Happened again.

Speaker 6 (32:36):
His girlfriend Julia saw it differently. Ross, you have to
stop this, she pleaded. Think about why someone would need
to buy a gun anonymously. Ross and Julia argued about this,
and Julie went off to her friend Erica's house to events.
Julia had become increasingly paranoid about everything Ross was doing,
and so she confided in her friend Erica about Ross
running silk rope.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
He here talking about illegal activity to his girlfriend, who
was one hundred percent against it.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Why could She's pretty and.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Got some sense, she said, she asked a very reasonable
question in which he had the audacity to argue about.
The reasonable question she asked is who would need to
buy a gun anonymously? The fact he had a retort

(33:29):
and thought it made sense clearly indicates he was a high.

Speaker 13 (33:34):
And b.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
High because there's no argument because when you go to
who need to buy a gun anonymously, there's generally a
very short list of individuals.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
It's possible.

Speaker 12 (33:55):
Again breaking them as.

Speaker 8 (34:00):
Coroach.

Speaker 6 (34:01):
She made Erica promise that she'd never say a word
about it to anyone, and for a while it seemed
like she'd kept that promise. However, one morning, Ross logged
onto Facebook and saw a public post on his wall
from Julia's best friend, Erica, saying, I'm sure the authorities
would like to know about Ross Albrick's drug websites. Immediately,
panic filled his body and he broke down in tears.

(34:23):
A wave of emotions crashed over him. Firstly, he was
angry Julia had told someone else that he was running
the sites. Secondly, he felt heartbroken that she would betray
his trust like that. But mostly the strongest emotion he
felt was fear. He immediately deleted Erica's post office Facebook
wall and phoned her in tears, begging her never to
mention it to anyone again. As for why Eric had

(34:44):
made the post calling out Ross in the first place,
it had all started when Erica had had a bad
trip from a substance she'd bought off self proache, and
when she got back from the hospital, she'd got into
a fight with both Julia and Ross, which had ended
with Ross telling Erica to leave. Erica, in an intoxicated state,
had then posted on Facebook revenge. Luckily for Ross, he'd
seen the post quickly enough, meaning the post was deleted
before hardly anyone saw it, and it was only their

(35:06):
Facebook friends who would have been able to see it anyway, who.

Speaker 8 (35:09):
Probably assumed it was just a joke.

Speaker 6 (35:11):
So the crisis seemed to have been averted for now,
but this incident made Ross extremely anxious.

Speaker 8 (35:16):
Juliet and Ross's relationship.

Speaker 6 (35:17):
Also ended as Julia refused to let Ross keep running
the site from her apartments. She issued him with an ultimatum,
but he had to close the site down or leave.

Speaker 8 (35:25):
He chose to leave.

Speaker 6 (35:26):
In fact, after the Eric incident, Ross decided he needed
to temporarily leave the country just as a precaution, and
so he went traveling. Ross went to Bondai Beach in
Australia to relax. He went to Vietnam to celebrate the
Lunar New Year. He even backpacked through Asia, popping from
different islands and staying in youth hostels. Of course, the
travelers he met along the way had absolutely no clue

(35:49):
Ross was running the biggest illegal site in the world
and that he was now worth millions of dollars in bitcoin.

Speaker 8 (35:54):
Life was good for us.

Speaker 6 (35:55):
The only downside of traveling was that Ross often had
to rely on Internet cafes to access Wi Fi we
could run the sites, and he was understandably anxious about
people seeing his screen and realizing what he was doing.
Thus he always had to pick a spot in the
corner of the Internet Canavese, and he also programmed his
laptop so that by pressing a certain key he could
immediately turn his screen black, just in case it felt
like anyone was looking at what he was doing. The

(36:16):
thought of getting caught was especially.

Speaker 8 (36:17):
Terrifying because he was technically a wanted man.

Speaker 6 (36:20):
All around the world since silk Road was a global site,
and the thought of ending up in a prison in
Southeast Asia, where people have been known to get hanged
for selling drugs, was particularly scary. The site's rapid growth
also presented other problems. Turns out, Ross trying to build
an entire marketplace by himself and meant the code was
filled with bugs. One particularly bad coding mistake, and that briefly,

(36:52):
when someone purchased something on Silk Road, Ross lost money
on the transaction instead of gaining money. Ross had no
choice but to temporarily block new site on Silk Road,
but he desperately tried to fix the issue. Ross was
now working around the clock on the site, trying to
manage all these new issues that kept popping up, like
attacked from hackers who demanded ransoms in bitcoin, complaints from customers,
and packages that had been seized in the mail. His

(37:14):
worried about the site continued to grow. Ross realized that,
just like any other growing business, he needed employees to
help him, so he started recruiting internally by hiring active
users of Silk Road to help him manage everything. Soon
he had ten employees, smary writing his shoddy code, some
moderating the self bread forums, and others dealing with support
issues and disputes.

Speaker 8 (37:32):
Whilst Ross was technically paying these staff, most of them
viewed it as more than a job because they all
had similar political.

Speaker 6 (37:38):
Views and together they felt they were building something big
here and that selk Rode was going to change the world. Meanwhile,
many other product categories also started popping up on the sites.
For example, some sellers started offering spy software and tossed
the hack into people with webcams. You could also buy
passports and fakds, or even counterfeit cash but looked just
like the real thing. And in one case, somebody had
even listed a rocket launcher for sale and was trying

(38:00):
to sell cyonige, a well known poison. Then one day
Ross woke up to a message from one of his
moderators saying should we let people sell kidneys? Turns out
one user on silk Road wanted to sell various human
body parts. The seller added that they'd all been acquired consensually.
Ross was obviously a little concerned. This wasn't quite what
he'd envisioned when he initially started the sites, But the

(38:20):
way he saw it, silk Road was merely a platform,
just like Facebook or rebay.

Speaker 8 (38:24):
It was the users who chose how to use it.

Speaker 6 (38:27):
It was against his philosophy to tell individuals what they
could or couldn't buy and sell. He wanted a free market,
so he didn't interfere, and as a result, the wide
variety of illegal products for sale on silk Road continued
to grow, which continued to attract even more attention to
the sites. What's interesting, though, is silk Road actually became
a bit of a community. Many viewed it not just
as a marketplace, but a movement on the community forum.

(38:49):
Ross even introduced a silk Bread Movie Nights, where once
a week, many silkwread users would all start watching the
same movie at the same time. Ross's first film choice
for this movie night was Viva Vendetta, and the movie's
antique theme was definitely popular with the selk Rode community.
Silk Rode also started running some competitions to help gain
new users, where people could win various illegal substances. However,

(39:09):
there was one incident where the competition winner ended up
disappearing right after winning, and some presumed he'd overdosed on
the prize. Ross joked that perhaps a better competition prize
would have been rehabed. There was a particularly active user

(39:30):
on silk Roade who went by the name Variety Jones,
and he started helping Ross find bugs in the site's
code and create a plan to help grow the site further.
The two of them started chatting by a private message
every single day and became close friends.

Speaker 8 (39:42):
But in a bizarre way.

Speaker 6 (39:43):
He was kind of like a business coach to Ross.
Whoever Variety Jones was, he clearly had a lot of experience.

Speaker 8 (39:48):
With the drugs business.

Speaker 6 (39:49):
One day, Variety Jones message Ross saying not to be
a downer or anything, but what we're doing falls under
the US drug Kingpin laws, which provides a maximum penalty
of death upon conviction the man.

Speaker 8 (40:00):
The minimum is life. Ross was very well aware of this,
although he generally tried not to think about it. However,
Variety Jones said he had a plan.

Speaker 6 (40:08):
The two of them were both fans of the movie
The Princess Bride, and in that film there's a feared
pirate called dread Pirate Roberts, except it's not just one person.

Speaker 8 (40:16):
The name was passed down from person to person over
the years.

Speaker 6 (40:20):
Variety Jones said Ross would change his name on Silk
Road for dread Pirate Roberts instead of just the user
name admin, which Ross had previously been using. Ross loved
the idea because this way, if Ross ever got caught
or connected to Silk Road in any way, all the
blame couldn't be pinned on him.

Speaker 8 (40:33):
Ross could admit he'd once been the admin of.

Speaker 6 (40:35):
The site, but he could say that just like in
the movie, it was a title that was passed down
from person to person, and he personally was no longer involved.
He could claim someone else had taken over as dread
Pirate Roberts instead. From that moment forward, Ross went by
dread Pirate Roberts or at DPR for shorts, and him
and Variety Jones continued to chat more and more. It'd
even sign off each stage to each other with messages
like sweet Dreams Captain. Before connecting with Variety Gases, Ross

(41:00):
had been feeling incredibly lonely since obviously he couldn't tell
anyone else what he was doing, especially not after what
happened with the Erica and Julia incidents. Ross had to
light to all his family and friends about his life.
In fact, he told them he was a day trader,
so they assumed he was just on his laptop so
much because he was trading stocks. But now having this
digital friendship with Variety Jones helped him fill us alone,
you know, in a literal partner in crime.

Speaker 8 (41:21):
Of course, it wasn't all perfect.

Speaker 6 (41:23):
As the site continued to grow in popularity, there were
multiple incidents where hackers managed to steal bitcoin from Ross.

Speaker 8 (41:28):
Because of issues with the sites.

Speaker 6 (41:30):
They would attack the site and Ross would have to
pay them a ransom and bitcoin to stop. Luckily, Ross
was making so much money by this point that the
hackers getting some bitcoin from him didn't actually matter that much.
It was just a normal day at the office. Ross
had never believed the site would get this big. By
the time the site was a year old, it was
estimated to be getting at least half a million dollars
worth of sales per week, which meant a lot of
commission for Ross. Plus Around this time, the price of

(41:51):
bitcoin was rapidly increasing, so all the money Ross was
making from the site's transaction fee.

Speaker 9 (42:00):
Million hours.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
So you're making two million dollars a month.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yeah, you are wanted internationally.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
Yes, when do you say I'm good?

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Remember, at a point it's not money as power. Remember
you're not a power hid in this shady internet cafe.
He got your word about getting get Brison. That's in
the real world, but online, grow up? Am I lying?

Speaker 4 (42:29):
Though?

Speaker 3 (42:30):
Nope, you're right.

Speaker 10 (42:31):
You're right.

Speaker 8 (42:39):
Is suddenly worth a lot more.

Speaker 6 (42:41):
By the end of self growe second year, it reached
almost one million users, and not His personal networth was
reportedly tens of millions of dollars, most of which was
bitcoin stored on thumb drives scattered around his apartments. But
Rostov' variety jones that by the time he was thirty,
he wanted to be worth one billion dollars, and incredibly,
it looked like it could actually be possible. It just
had to keep expanding.

Speaker 8 (43:03):
Within two years of launching, silk Road was at nearly
a million users by its peak.

Speaker 6 (43:07):
If silk Road was a normal company, it would be
called a unicorn, the label given to businesses valued at
over a billion dollars. It was unbelievable, really, a guy
in his twenties running the world's largest illegal empire from
his laptop. Ross had a slightly surreal moment whilst visiting
the country of Dominica, where he realized silk Road was
worth more than the entire country's GDP. But occasionally Ross
would get a brutal reminder that the empire he was

(43:28):
building did have some very real life consequences, like when
he saw this on the news.

Speaker 8 (43:34):
The synthetic illst that killed Preston was bought online so
impotent it made him think he were fine and filled
from a balcony and self a horrific dream.

Speaker 6 (43:44):
If Ross listened to the story of some kids who'd
purchased a party pack from Silk Road containing a synthetic
drug from China made it in an unregulated lab.

Speaker 14 (43:51):
A kid, yes, obvious, Shinea is always a c is
a facilitator and all they gonna do is find an
opportunity to give them more money.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
And of course.

Speaker 1 (44:17):
Let 'em motherfucker believe they could fly.

Speaker 3 (44:19):
Wow?

Speaker 10 (44:25):
What the thing is an right right there?

Speaker 9 (44:29):
Now to day Apple.

Speaker 10 (44:35):
More time call that?

Speaker 8 (44:41):
How is oo?

Speaker 3 (44:42):
Never thought about that?

Speaker 12 (44:43):
Like all the money done get the it's all falls.

Speaker 7 (44:49):
Back on it, like I need be a redtator?

Speaker 11 (44:55):
Is it?

Speaker 8 (44:55):
Heard about the sites?

Speaker 6 (44:56):
Somebody going online follow the guide about how to buy
bitcoin as an order on self road and the items
turned up in the mail easy. But when one of
the kids took it he started panicking. He suddenly didn't
know where he was or what he was doing. The
room was spinning. He got up and started running. He
had no idea where he was going and ran straight
up the hotel balcony, falling thirty feet into the parking

(45:19):
lot below.

Speaker 8 (45:29):
I'd just absoutely loved to what he turned out today.

Speaker 6 (45:38):
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Speaker 8 (46:28):
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Use my link guard dot io slash Magnates Media and
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resources to the search for dread pirate Roberts. But considering

(46:53):
multiple different government agencies were working on the case of
Selk Road, like the FBI and the DEA, it might
surprise you that the biggest breakthrough a wall came from.

Speaker 8 (47:01):
An IRIS agent making a simple Google search.

Speaker 6 (47:04):
Gary Alford was a tax inspector who'd been assigned to
the Silk Road case try.

Speaker 8 (47:07):
And track some of the money being laundered.

Speaker 6 (47:09):
However, he had pretty much no knowledge of bitcoin talk
or anything else to do with Silk Roach. What Gary
did have in his favor was that he was very
detail oriented and he read everything three times to make
sure he never missed anything. Gary also liked to think
outside the box. His favorite ever criminal case was how
they caught the serial killer son of Sam, who went
on a killing spree in New York in the seventies.

Speaker 8 (47:29):
For a while, no matter how many.

Speaker 6 (47:30):
Detectives they put on the case, nobody could figure out
who the killer was. But then one day an officer
decided to take a different approach and look for cars
in the nearby area that had received parking tickets around
the same time of the murders. The logic being that
the murderer would hardly be concerned about running back to
top of the parking meter was in the middle of
killing someone. They found a pattern where the same car
had received parking tickets on the night of the murders

(47:50):
and always located fairly close to the scene at the crime.
They then traced the owner of the car, and that
led them straight to the murderer.

Speaker 8 (47:56):
Group of vests. Gary liked this case because it.

Speaker 6 (47:59):
Proved you could outperform more experienced people by looking at
the problem differently, and Gary was convinced the founder of
Silk Road must have left a similarly small mistake behind
the digital equivalent of a parking tickets. Gary started his
search by asking what was the earliest post about silk
Road on the Internet, since he figured whoever started the
site would have had to drive up interest in the
first place, so Gary went to Google type the silk

(48:20):
Road web address into the search box, and using advanced Search,
he filtered by dates, looking for results only from early
twenty eleven, which is when the Silk Road was rumored
to a start.

Speaker 8 (48:29):
Is Only a few.

Speaker 6 (48:30):
Search results came up, and one of them was a
post from a user called Altoid on a forum called
the Shrumery. The post sounded more like a user not
the creator of the sites, but it was the first
record online of someone mentioning silk Road. So Gary searched
for other posts by a user called Altoid from around
the same dates, and stumbled across a post on another
forum called bitcoin Talk, where someone with the same altwoid
username had posted has anyone seen.

Speaker 8 (48:51):
Silk Road yet, It's kind of like an anonymous Amazon
dot com.

Speaker 6 (48:54):
Gary thought it was interesting that the first mentions of
silk Road online were both coming from this same username,
that this person had been promoting silk Road on multiple
different forums right around the time that silk Road launched,
so Gary looked through Altoid's post history on the forum,
and a few months after silk Road started, Altoid admitted
another post saying it pro needed for a bitcoin start up.

Speaker 8 (49:15):
It was a job ad for a bitcoin related projects.

Speaker 6 (49:17):
But inside the post read if interested, please send your
answers to the following questions to Rossolbrecht at gmail dot com.

Speaker 8 (49:24):
Now, when Gary told his colleagues about these findings, they
dismissed there.

Speaker 6 (49:27):
They said, just because this user was the first ones
to public people post about silk Road didn't mean he
was the creator, which is true.

Speaker 8 (49:34):
They certainly needed more evidence to prove anything.

Speaker 6 (49:41):
But the more Gary looked into this Ross Olbrichs character,
the more convinced he became that this was the guy
behind silk Road.

Speaker 8 (49:47):
First up, by searching the name Ross Olbricht, Gary.

Speaker 6 (49:49):
Fan Ross's YouTube channel, containing videos about libertarianism, along with
a saved video about how to get away with stealing.

(50:15):
But also Ross had used the username oh Yeah, Ross,
which was interesting because whenever dread Pirate Roberts messaged anyone
or wrote on the silk word forum, you'd always write yeah,
not yes, oh yeah, always just yeah. It was a
small detail, but perhaps more than just a coincidence. Secondly,
Gary found Ross's LinkedIn profile, which had anti government posts.

(50:36):
Ross had written, the most widespread and systematic use of
force is amongst institutions and governments. So this is my
current point of efforts. The best way to change the
government is to change the minds of the government. To
that end, I'm creating an economic simulation to give people
a first hand experience of what it would be like
to live in a world without the systematic.

Speaker 8 (50:52):
Use of force.

Speaker 6 (50:54):
Thirdly, they found a coding question related to tour posted
on stack overflow, which have been posted by a user
called Ross all Bricks, but within a minute of posting,
he changed his username to Frosty insteads Clearly he realized
he'd slipped up by using his real name, and so
that's why he changed it right away. Gary couldn't shake
the feeling that this was the guy they were looking for.
So Gary as the colleague who worked for the Department

(51:14):
of Homeland Security to do a search on Ross Olberot's name,
and they found a recent incident on his file, but
he'd ordered fake IDs online but had been intercepted. When
Ross had been questioned by an officer about this, he
made a comment about how hypothetically anyone could go on
a website called selk Road and buy them. Why Ross
said that is anyone's guess. Maybe he was trying to
make the point that buying fake ideas wasn't that big

(51:34):
of a deal these days, or maybe he just got
over confident that selk Rode could never be traced to him.

Speaker 8 (51:38):
But either way, Gary felt this whole thing was suspicious.

Speaker 6 (51:41):
Now, of course, all these different details still weren't conclusive
evidence Ross Olbrichs was the creator and owner of selk Road.

Speaker 8 (51:47):
But here's the thing.

Speaker 6 (51:48):
Other important details about the case hadn't been shared with Gary.
To be honest, nobody expected this IRS agent would crack
the case. The other agencies had been working on for
over two years, so they hadn't bothered to fill him
in on recent developments. You see, whilst Gary had been
doing this research, the FBI had managed to find out
the IP address of the service silk Work.

Speaker 8 (52:05):
Was hosted on.

Speaker 6 (52:06):
Using the IP address, they'd managed to find out the
server was hosted in a data center in Iceland, and
by working with the Islandic authorities, the FBI were able
to infiltrate the silk Road server. Now, as for exactly
how the government found the server's IP address in the
first place, that's a bit of a controversial issue. Some
believe the NSA had some involvement and used an illegal
spying tactic that would have infringed on Ross's Fourth Amendment rights.

Speaker 8 (52:27):
However, the government denied this and said the way they
were able to get.

Speaker 6 (52:31):
To the server was because of vulnerabilities in silk Glad's code,
which leaked the server's IP address. This is definitely possible, because,
as we've already established, silk Road's code had plenty of
problems because of how quickly it had been developed by
Ross could initially.

Speaker 8 (52:43):
Been working on it, or by himself.

Speaker 6 (52:45):
Either way, now that the FBI had tracked down the
silk Road server in Iceland, it could access a lot
of crucial data.

Speaker 8 (52:50):
Most importantly of all, they could see activity on the server,
like whenever the silk Word.

Speaker 6 (52:54):
Admin logged in or out, The logs showed the most
recent admin log in had come from an Internet cafe
in San Francisco.

Speaker 8 (53:00):
What's this was a major breakthrough.

Speaker 6 (53:01):
The FBUY still didn't have any leads on who the
hell d read pirate Roberts actually was, and that's when
they got a call from Gary at the IRS. Gary
got on a group call with the agents from other
departments working on the case, like the DEA and FBI,
and he laid out everything he'd found. Gary explained that
this person with the user name Altoyd had been the
first one to mention silk Road online, and he'd made

(53:22):
multiple posts about silk Road on different forums, almost like
he was promoting the site when it first began. Gary
said that the user had slipped up and on one
of his later posts included his personal email.

Speaker 8 (53:31):
Ross Albright at gmail dot com.

Speaker 6 (53:33):
Garydi went on to explain how on stack overflow a
user had posted a coding question related to the tour
under the name ross Olbricht, but then a minute later
changed the name to the pseudonym Frosty. At that exact moment,
one of the other agents on the call cut Gary
off and said, wait, did you just say Frosty. Gary
was a little frustrated he still had more to explain. Yes,
I said Frosty, But why are you focusing on that part?

Speaker 8 (53:54):
Gary asked.

Speaker 6 (53:55):
The agent replied when we got the server from Iceland,
we found that both the server and the computer that
belongs DPR had both been given the same name, Frosty.
There was a brief silence on the call. The dots
was starting to connect. Gary then added that he tracked
where Ross was currently living because of the incident with
the fake IDs on his record.

Speaker 8 (54:14):
However, when Gary shared Ross's current address with the FBI,
they couldn't believe it.

Speaker 6 (54:18):
Ross was living in San Francisco, just a couple of
blocks from the internet cafe where they tracked the Silk
Road admin IP address.

Speaker 8 (54:25):
This was clearly their guy.

Speaker 6 (54:26):
The truth was now clear to everyone on the call,
the FBI agents, the DEA agents, and Gary from the IRS.
Ross Olbricht was dreaded piraate Roberts. Gary had been right.
The elusive criminal master mind had been chasing for the
last couple of years. Perhaps wasn't quite the criminal master
mind they'd thought. He'd made several major mistakes that exposed
his true identity. His downfall was simply because of human error.

(54:48):
This was a guy in his twenties who never expected
Silk Road to become what it did, and thus hadn't
taken enough care to cover his tracks, or, as Gary
would say, this was the digital equivalent of the parking tickets,
a minor detail that had been overload. Either way, the
authorities finally knew that Rosswaldreaked was the one behind Silk Road.
Now they just had to catch him. But surprisingly that
wasn't going to be as easy as you'd think. The

(55:20):
FBI assigned a team of undercover agents to trap Ross
and watches every move because they had access to the
Silk Road serverlogs. Now they could literally see when the
Silk Road admin long in or out, and it always
coincided with.

Speaker 8 (55:31):
When Ross opened or closed his laptop. It was undeniable.
He was their guy.

Speaker 6 (55:35):
So why weren't they rushing in immediately to arrest him. Well,
you see, they needed to catch him with his laptop open.
That laptop contained all kinds of valuable data that would
not only help in prosecuting Ross, but also in tracking
down other people who'd worked on Silk Road or big
dealers on the site. But if a team of agents
just suddenly swarmed into arrest Ross, he would likely have
time to close his laptop lid, which would lock it.
I mean, all the data was encrypted and near impossible

(55:57):
to break into. Plus, if they didn't catch Ross literally
sitting at his laptop, it would give him some kind
of deniability, so they had to catch him redhanded with
the laptop open in front of him so they could
definitely prove he was responsible. When Ross woke up on
October one, twenty thirteen, it seemed just like any other day.
He initially went to a nearby cafe, but it was
quite busy and he couldn't get a spot to work
in that was private enough, so instead he went to

(56:17):
sit in the San Francisco Public Library. He found a
secluded spot where nobody could see his screen and logged
into the Selk Road admin area. Of course, Ross was
completely unaware that the library was filled with undercover FBI
agents who were watching him. But remember, one wrong move
from the authorities and Ross could panic and close the laptop,
thus encrypting all the data. They couldn't let Ross know
they were on to him, but it would all be over,

(56:38):
So two undercover agents created a distraction right behind Ross,
posing as a couple arguing. One of them swore loudly
in the quiet library, causing Ross to turn around to
see what was going on At that exact moment Ross
turned around, another agent who'd been positioned right next to him,
swooped in and grabbed the laptop off the table in
front of Ross.

Speaker 8 (56:55):
Ross tried to reach out to grab it, but it
was too late.

Speaker 6 (56:57):
Another agent had come up behind him and handcuffed him,
placing him under arrests. It was all perfectly timed, so
Ross had no chance to react. Ross had been caught.
Logged into the admin section of Silk Roads, and in
the corner of the computer was the name Frosty.

Speaker 4 (57:10):
And not just that.

Speaker 8 (57:11):
On his unlocked computer was a full.

Speaker 6 (57:13):
Diary about running Silk Road, along with thousands of chat
messages he sent whilst running the sites, all of which
could use his evidence to convict him and.

Speaker 8 (57:21):
Verify the story.

Speaker 6 (57:29):
Newspapers and TV stations all around the world cover the
story the boy scout who'd been secretly running a website
the traffic ton estimated one point two billion dollars of drugs, weapons, poisons,
and other illegal goods.

Speaker 8 (57:40):
His family was sure he'd been framed or there'd been
a mistake. This couldn't.

Speaker 10 (58:01):
There a man.

Speaker 8 (58:05):
More possibly be there?

Speaker 2 (58:11):
Ross?

Speaker 8 (58:11):
Could it?

Speaker 6 (58:22):
Sometimes when I'm researching these business stories, they feel more
like the plot of a Hollywood movie than real life.
But they do say that the truth is often the
stranger than fiction and that this next part is absolutely ridiculous.
So after the authorities got hold of Ross's open laptop,
they could see everything, including all his chat histories. But
this led the FBI to realize there was a government

(58:42):
agent who'd been working on the Silk World case who
had been privately messaging Ross and accepting secret payments from
him in exchange for information about the case. This corrupt
agent was Carl Force, and he obviously thought because the
messages were encrypted and the payment was in Bitcoin, he
would never get caught. But now the government had Ross's
chat histories and records of the bitcoin trands. It all
started when karlinitially posed as a big time drug smuggler

(59:04):
on the Selk road forums under the username no. He
began messaging Ross or as he knew him back then,
dread Pirate Roberts, and started to build a relationship with him.
Once Color built up some trust with Ross, he told
him that he knew of a mole within the DEA
and started selling information about the Selk Worad case to Ross.

Speaker 8 (59:19):
Of course, Karl himself was the mole. He was taking
payments from Ross in exchange for information about the case
of the.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
We just watched it apart of yesterday about the rat.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
You're like, Oh, this is a crazy ass st It
is a crazy ass story written by Scorsese.

Speaker 8 (59:38):
This is real.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
Here's a twelve year old man that was in the
doing the other the DA who was stitching on the
seven basis to get paid abouts about himself and paid.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
How the hell you look at a get caught.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
That's the stupid part you got after all that, you
still got caught because you.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
Couldn't even secure your asset, You idiot.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
Why the heck' that's the deea for you, stupid, Because
everybody know that if you're using a CI or confidential informant.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
Or whatever the hell.

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
You see it, the police proceiduals, you make sure that
motherfucker is safe. Keep it like if he on drugs,
make sure that he not strung out, Make sure he
go to rehab.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
Feed this motherfucker, like, if he needs.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
Some money, you give it to him because he snitching
and putting his life on the line. If you saying
you the compidentional informant putting your life on the line
just to get payment for yourself. Why wouldn't you make
sure that the architect that you know is the architect
and you know they looking for him, and you basically
tipping them off. Why would't you say, hey, are you

(01:00:49):
at the Starbucks? I can see you, fool.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
Dude. Basics say, you're clearly twenty. I'm clearly a career criminal.
So I'm going to teach you how to work within
the system and be a criminal. First, don't go Starbucks
with the public library or the public.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
Library, get up, get your own internet for what you know,
use the VPN for two.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
Couple things we can start out with, because again I
work for the DA, and if you get caught.

Speaker 13 (01:01:31):
So do I.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
And the weird weapons.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
We've so insane that he lied to himself, still getting paid,
but still how you want to go work?

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
He said?

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
I am, He said, I'm snitching on the DA for
you while snitching on y'all. But I'm not really telling
him because I'm making sure nobody know that I'm with
the DA even though I am. Henceforward what and then
when you get caught he has the nervous assurprise you got.
How'd you figure it out? Because your accid got caught

(01:02:03):
being stupid, not because we did crack police work. This
was an accident. The man for treasure, we were just saying.
He didn't really try to get fake ideas and said
my band you get it on Silk Road. Nobody's that dug.
Nobody would say the thing that you built. Nobody would

(01:02:25):
have your email?

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
What's your name and say not even at.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
Says his name at atgmail dot com justsic caase you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
Didn't know how to put the ad in there. He
had to make sure and it had a space out.

Speaker 12 (01:02:43):
Need to build this project quote unquote.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
That sentence, that sentence, that sentence had to have taken
five minutes to write.

Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
In that five minutes. He didn't stop and say let's
take my name out. Could have part like I'm just saying.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
At any point when he was putting those spaces in
between his initials the act at the gmail dot com
there were three spaces and all that he could have
in that space, said let's delete it all because first
of all, this is not how an email address is
in is entered so incorrect. Second, my name is here

(01:03:27):
and I'm asking about a tour server and building an
underground drug market. Take my name out. I just feel
I shouldn't be attributed to this at all for selfish reasons,
you know, but.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
Well know I understand, but no, but I'm just saying,
for your own personal edification.

Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
Let's say I am a criminal mastermind and I believe
nobody could beat me, and I don't give a shit
who knows.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
Just of my own comfort. Let's take out the email
address with my name. We could have any other.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
Email address, but let's try not to have our government
name that possibly if we get pulled over and say
for getting some Okay, first of all, how you using
your own underground to get fake id's what is wrong
with your foe?

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
So we know if he did that, he had to
have bought drugs over there. Obviously.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
With that said, because you're like, you could just rate
him and I went with one with the highest rate,
you idiot. But here would go with the government being
corrupt again because you dau all the economy people's the
drug in Botment agencyne tell President you saying the requirement

(01:04:52):
like they send the dname they.

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
Belda sending the partment.

Speaker 12 (01:04:56):
Home man Security media said the president family state Suita, Hell,
you might escape r NA isn't.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
It based on fraudulent underground drug market?

Speaker 12 (01:05:11):
Is the age you're working for the drug for?

Speaker 8 (01:05:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
Yeah, that you're bastard, but we would assume it was that.
But why the hell you're doing one record?

Speaker 9 (01:05:28):
Where's the one.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
To get your take?

Speaker 3 (01:05:35):
I'm gonna pull you into the world long into the
same seriously, And it wasn't a prodigy.

Speaker 12 (01:05:44):
What had happen? I had a laughing donment, but I
didn't know drug.

Speaker 6 (01:05:50):
Of course, of several months, Car received of a seven
hundred and fifty thousand dollars in bitcoin and exchange for
sending information to us about the.

Speaker 8 (01:05:56):
Self Road case. Up things get much crazier.

Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
You see.

Speaker 6 (01:06:03):
One of the employees Rust had hired to help him
with Silk Road was a guy called Curtis green And
who had become a site moderator. But one day, when
Curtis got a large shipment of cokes into his house,
he was caught by the Baltimore task for let me
let let's.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
Talk about her house the wild because it's time you've been.

(01:06:35):
It's I'm just not bad. Never the you and hold
service that would have.

Speaker 10 (01:06:40):
Order in.

Speaker 12 (01:06:43):
Because you under said, yeah, and a man going to
the ring mail all the night.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
The moon or I've been thin if you find to
be in at patment because you're can of them. Your
absolute is the PA.

Speaker 12 (01:06:57):
And you hit on your route because why.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
So we're turning off?

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
Get correct for the man who has gotten under a
free go gokay, get a bar now on the screen.

Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
What y'all don't do. It's a bunch of police people
are gonna be home. Then now the man receives, go
und the door and three, I'm going to have a
good day.

Speaker 7 (01:07:30):
I'm wouldn't ask you.

Speaker 12 (01:07:32):
If you just got you a bunch of tile.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
The particles arches un the doorsteps, don't lie.

Speaker 12 (01:07:39):
You're like, I've really gonna night.

Speaker 3 (01:07:40):
And day or gonna chails like there's two outs, come
to stop.

Speaker 12 (01:07:44):
I'm going to have a when there like the merchant
Purvis hain't got a old food home.

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):
Everything till go welday.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
So you wake up birthday in the morning getting crossing
your doorstep, expect to day not to go well be.

Speaker 3 (01:07:59):
For some reasons, well.

Speaker 8 (01:08:02):
Well force and got.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
What would you do?

Speaker 12 (01:08:14):
You who.

Speaker 6 (01:08:28):
Arrested Ross was obviously confused why his moderators suddenly stopped
applying to him, because at first he had no idea
Curtis had been arrested, and then he noticed Curtis had
stolen three hundred and fifty thousand dollars from step Road
because as a moderator, Curtis had access to some.

Speaker 8 (01:08:41):
Of the site's funds that were being held in escrow.

Speaker 6 (01:08:43):
Now, Ross obviously assumed Curtis had betrayed him, that he'd
stolen money from the sites and then vanished. But in
yet another twist, it wasn't Curtis who stole the money
from the site. It was another corrupt agent on the
Baltimore Task Force called Sean Bridges.

Speaker 8 (01:08:56):
After arresting Curtis Green, Sean had lot.

Speaker 12 (01:09:00):
Let's get a shout out to Baltimore.

Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
To sell just how corrupt Baltimore truth. Not another agent
on the.

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
Because you know the one who got the coach shipped
to his house with the Baltimore agent, the Taskbard.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
And now we got another one.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
Now there's there's a there's a there's an albatross going
on in this entire.

Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
Situation now, if you'll need to be addressed.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
The creator and facilitator of the underground the drug market
got offended when criminals he put in charge to moderate
the funds because he could have had any point said
you can moderate, not access to the full have access

(01:09:59):
to the fund So he's an idiot.

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
He's surprised that criminal stole from him, so let that
marinate and was upset and said, how dare you I
feel betrayed.

Speaker 6 (01:10:24):
As the facilit Nope, logged into Curtis's Silk Road account
that had moderated privileges and started transferring some of the
Silk Road bitcoins to his own personal account. So this
government agent was basically siphoning money off Silk Road to
his own personal Bitcoin. Waller was logged in with Curtis's
moderator accounts, and just to be clear, Sean wasn't doing

(01:10:46):
this to turn the money over to the governments. He
was moving the funds to his own personal private accounts
thinking he wouldn't get caught because it was in bitcoin.
So just to recap, we now have two different corrupt
agents working on the Silk Road case who were both
part of the Baltimore Task Force, both with.

Speaker 8 (01:10:59):
That owned separate schemes to steal bitcoem for themselves. As
for Ross, he obviously had no idea about any of this.

Speaker 6 (01:11:05):
He just assumed Curtis had robbed him, so, according to
the chat logs from Ross's computer, he decided to hire
someone to go after Curtis. Initially, Ross didn't want to
kill him, He just wanted his money back and maybe
to beat him up a bit. However, Ross's in a
circle that he spoke to on silk Roade like Variety
Jones persuaded Ross it was the right decision to have
Curtis killed because he needed to send a message that
he couldn't be crossed.

Speaker 8 (01:11:26):
Otherwise other Silk Road employees might think about portraying Ross
in the future as well.

Speaker 6 (01:11:30):
Ross had to send a message. Ultimately, Ross agreed and
asked if anyone could kill Curtis. One of the people
who saw that request was Carl Force, the other corrupt
agent who was part of the same team who just
arrested Curtis, sending an opportunity to make yet more money
for himself. Karl replied using his nob user name and
said he knew some pros who could get the job done.
He said they need forty K up front and forty

(01:11:50):
K after the execution was complete, so Ross sent.

Speaker 8 (01:11:53):
The first half of the payment. Carl then got Curtis,
who he had under arrest and staged his death.

Speaker 6 (01:11:59):
They took a photo of what looked like Curtis's dead body,
except Curtis wasn't dead. It was just a stage photo,
but Ross didn't know that. He assumed the hit had
been carried out successfully and paid the rest of the
money to Karl. Ross did write back that he was
a little disturbed by the photo and explained, I'm new
to this kind of thing. It was clear he was
quite distressed about issuing a hit on someone, but as
far as Ross knew, Curtis had stolen hundreds of thousands

(01:12:19):
of dollars from him, so he rationalized that having him
killed was necessary. In reality, of course, Curtis was alive,
and it was the corrupt agent Sean who stolen the
money from Curtis's moderator accounts, and the other corrupt agent, Karl,
who'd faked Goods his death in order to make.

Speaker 8 (01:12:32):
Even more money from a supposed hit job.

Speaker 6 (01:12:34):
Shortly after this, Ross would end up ordering hits on
five other people who crossed him, including a hacker who
was trying to extort money from him. As far as
Ross was concerned, he now had the power to pay
to get anyone killed if he needed to. In the
diary on Ross's computer, he wrote sent payment to Angels
for hit on Tony seventy six and his three associates,
which was then followed by an update about some work
he done on the site that day. It seemed like

(01:12:55):
ordering a hit on someone had now just become a
fairly normal part of the job to us. But again,
just like put the hit he ordered on Curtis, none
of these murders Ross paid for ever took place, nobody's
were ever found. It seems Ross was simply getting scammed
by other people claiming to be hit men, and nobody
had actually been killed. Which was lucky for Ross because
when he eventually got caught in the library and all
these messages he'd sent were discovered, the murder for higher

(01:13:17):
charges against him were dropped because even though they had
evidence from his chatlogs that he paid for those hits
and that he believed the orders had been carried out,
it was all an elaborate scam and he couldn't be
convicted of.

Speaker 8 (01:13:27):
Murder when nobody had been murdered. Now, for legal reasons,
I should.

Speaker 6 (01:13:30):
Stress that Ross's family still maintains that someone planted those
messages on his computer, and that Ross never wrote them himself.
As for Carl and Sean, the two corrupt agents both
were sentenced to around six years in prison each. It's
seriously crazy that two separate government agents working on the
same case both prictters steal so much money and secretly
transfer it to their own bitcoin wallarts.

Speaker 8 (01:13:49):
And if Ross hadn't been caught, they likely wouldn't have
been caught either.

Speaker 6 (01:13:52):
But of course Ross was court and that now it's
time we look at the final and most crucial part
of all of.

Speaker 8 (01:13:58):
This, what actually happened to Ross? Yes, okay, it's time
for a very quick break. While I asked you a favor.

Speaker 6 (01:14:06):
If you're enjoying this video so far, please turn on
the notification belt for Magnate's Media. I'm posting mini movies
about business, money, marketing, and more, but just subscribing doesn't
always mean you'll see them, so please consider turning on
notifications and I'll.

Speaker 8 (01:14:20):
Love you forever.

Speaker 6 (01:14:30):
Ross was being charged with seven different offenses, including drug trafficking,
money laundering, and the Kingpin Statutes, something which was normally
reserved for cartel leaders. However, even though Ross had been
caught with his fingers on the laptop whilst logged in
as the admin on Silk Road.

Speaker 8 (01:14:44):
He still plared not guilty.

Speaker 6 (01:14:46):
His lawyers admitted that Ross had started the Silk Roade,
but blamed he had done so as a social experiment,
not as a business to make money. They then said,
shortly after he started the sites, things have begun to
get a little out of control, and thus Ross had
decided to sell the site to someone else who went
by the name dread Pirate Roberts. They claimed that aft
of that Ross had no further involvement in the sites,
and that Ross was simply being set up.

Speaker 8 (01:15:06):
As the fall guy by the real DPR.

Speaker 6 (01:15:08):
They argued the chatlogs and diary on Ross's computer had
been planted there to try and pin all the blame
on him. However, unfortunately for Ross, the evidence against him
was overwhelming. He had literally been caught logged into the
Silk Road at admin page loads on his laptop whilst
at the library. Not just that, the chatlogs on his
computer dated back for multiple years and showed everything he'd said,
including the conversation with Variety Jones. But they invented the

(01:15:30):
dread Pirate Roberts name as an alibi if he was
ever caught. Messages also showed DPR telling someone he was
buying fake IDs because he needed to expand silk Roade
service space, and these messages were sent right at the
same time that Ross's fake IDs were intercepted. As for
the notion that Ross sold the sites, there was absolutely
no record or indication of that. Plus Ross had still
been receiving all the bitcoin from site commissions, so it

(01:15:51):
seemed clear he was still the one who'd been running
it all this time. From start to finish, Ross had
been dread pirate Roberts. Despite this, advocates came from all
over to support Ross during the trial, but many of
them protesting on the steps of the courthouse that he
was a hero.

Speaker 8 (01:16:04):
They said that all Ross had Dunne was run a website,
and if that was a crime, then the CEOs of eBay.

Speaker 6 (01:16:08):
And Craigslist should stand trial too, as illegal goods were
sold on those websites as well. The jury did not
see it the same way. They returned their verdict guilty
on all accounts. The chat logs and files on Ross's
computer were just too damning. If he'd only closed the
laptop lid when in the library, it's likely they wouldn't
have been able to prove so much. Before his sentencing,
Ross sent a letter to the judge which said, I've

(01:16:29):
had my youth, and I know you must take away
my middle years, but please leave me with my old age.
Please leave a small light at the end of the tunnel,
and excuse to stay healthy, and excuse a dream of
better days ahead. And I chanced to redeem myself in
the free world before I meet my maker. The judge
did not listen to this. Ross received two life sentences
plus forty years with no parole.

Speaker 8 (01:16:48):
In other words, Ross was spent the entire rest of
his life in prison.

Speaker 6 (01:16:51):
Some felt this was overly harsh, but it seemed the
judge wanted to make an example of him to try
and deter other people from setting up similar marketplaces in future.

Speaker 8 (01:16:58):
The judge also.

Speaker 6 (01:16:59):
Explained her decision by saying that she disagreed with Ross's
philosophy that drug use only affect those who take the drugs.
She said there are many other people who were hurt
because of the dangerous substances sold on Silk Road. People
die and newse loved ones, families get ripped, aparts, junkies
are created, and in many instances had exclude their ability
to care for their children, and a generation can grow
up neglected and orphans. In other words, Silk Road caused

(01:17:21):
irreparable harm to many people. The judge also pointed out
that whilst no bodies had been found, Ross had commissioned
five murders, which he.

Speaker 8 (01:17:28):
Paid for and he fully believed they'd taken place.

Speaker 6 (01:17:31):
Ultimately, the evidence against Ross seemed conclusive, and thus Ross
was sentenced to life in jail.

Speaker 8 (01:17:36):
Of course, there's two sides to this.

Speaker 6 (01:17:38):
On the one hand, there have been studies that showed
people were much less likely to be physically harmed buying
these substances online compared to on the streets, and Ross
tried to argue silk Road actually made the experience much safer,
especially with the review system. On the sides, if these
people were going to buy illegal goods anyway, silk Word
was probably a much safer way to do it. Ross
was also technically a first time offender, and this was
a non violent charge, and so the life's sentencing did

(01:18:00):
seem unusually extreme. Because yes, Ross built the selk Code platform.
Aside from the initial trumps he grew, he wasn't selling
any drugs himself. He was a web admin, and you
could argue that drug trades happened all the time on
platforms like Facebook and snatchat, but that doesn't mean the
platform creator is the blame. On the other hands, there
is clearly a big difference between silk Road and those
other sites. Those other sites don't allow I legal sales,

(01:18:23):
whereas silk Roade.

Speaker 8 (01:18:23):
Actively encouraged it and made it possible.

Speaker 6 (01:18:25):
Plus, in twenty fifteen, a study from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention so that for the first time
in recent history, more people have died from opioid related
overdoses in America than from gun deaths. They found one
of the main reasons for the rise in deaths was
due to the easy in which people could now gain
access to these substances. The growth in substance abuse coincided
with the growth in popularity of silk Roads.

Speaker 8 (01:18:46):
In other words, people.

Speaker 6 (01:18:47):
Got access to items they likely wouldn't have been able
to access without silk Roads, and in multiple cases that
led to people dying. Silk Corde made it easy for
people of all ages to access unsafe substances and illegal goods.

Speaker 8 (01:18:57):
And ross enabled that.

Speaker 6 (01:18:59):
In fact, he person approved the cell of countless extremely
dangerous items. However, no matter what side of the debate
you fall on, you have to recognize it's.

Speaker 8 (01:19:07):
Not fully black and white.

Speaker 6 (01:19:08):
What does seem clear is that Ross was the creator
and operator of silk Road, and that from February sixth,
twenty eleven, to July twenty third, twenty thirteen, it's estimated
well over one point two million unique transactions happened on
the site and nine million.

Speaker 8 (01:19:20):
Five hundred nineteen thousand, six hundred and sixty four bitcoin
was generated in sales.

Speaker 6 (01:19:24):
Of that, six hundred and fourteen thousand, three hundred and
five bitcoin was taken by silk Road as commission. Some
of that money was reinvested back into site growth, staff
and maintenance, and some of it Ross took for himself.
Back in twenty thirteen, when Ross was caught, that money
was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. As of today,
it would be worth tens of billions of dollars. It's ironic,
really that Ross was a big fan of the show
Breaking Bads, as there's clearly parallels with his own story.

(01:19:47):
A seemingly total normal guy who descends into becoming a
drug kingpin, gradually getting more extreme along the way, like
ordering a hit to get someone killed, and likewise, both
started out with a more noble objective. For Walt, it
was to pay his medical bills. For Ross, it was
to give people freedom. But both seemed to end up
liking the power and wealth. They gained a little too much,
and they got carried away and pushed things too far

(01:20:08):
until finally it'll caught up with them. Even though the
judge had expected that the sentencing she gave to Ross
would return anyone else from creating another silk Road, in reality,
almost immediately after the original silk Road site got shut down,

(01:20:29):
silk Rode two point oho popped up. Arguably, all the
attention of the Silk Road case just got more people interested.

Speaker 8 (01:20:34):
In the idea.

Speaker 6 (01:20:35):
However, sequels are rarely better than the original, and indeed
the multiple selk Rode sequels haven't quite gained the.

Speaker 8 (01:20:40):
Same notoriety as Ross's original sites.

Speaker 6 (01:20:43):
Silk Rode two lested exactly one year before federal agents
found the server hosting silk Rode two in a FIGN
country and realized the server was registered to the email
address Blake.

Speaker 8 (01:20:51):
At dental dot.

Speaker 6 (01:20:52):
Next turns out a guy called Blake Dental who was
allegedly operating the site, have used his own personal email
account with his full name in to set up the
serp for silk Row too, So just like Ross's use
of his personal email address led the FBI to him,
the same happened with Blake.

Speaker 8 (01:21:06):
I'm still not sure why you would possibly use your
real personal email address for that anyway. Once again, there
was some controversy around how the authorities were able to
locate the.

Speaker 6 (01:21:14):
Server in the first place, something governments used are potentially
a legal spying technique, and others think the tour network
itself may be compromised. There's all kinds of theories, but
none of that has stopped countless other similar dart marketplaces
popping up over the last few years. Generally as one
shuts down, another intends to open, although quite often it
turns out the entire site was a scam in the
first place, or even a honeypot by the government to

(01:21:35):
catch dealers.

Speaker 8 (01:21:36):
Interestingly, though, many of the people who.

Speaker 6 (01:21:38):
Set up these silk Row clones or similar illegal marketplaces
do so under the name of dread pirate Roberts, so
in a way, Ross's vision of a free market that
would live on and be passed down.

Speaker 8 (01:21:47):
From person to person. It kind of happened, although.

Speaker 6 (01:21:50):
Since Ross is facing the rest of his life in prison,
I doubt that's much consolation. Now, if you found this
story of Silk Rode interesting, I think you're really going
to enjoy this video I made about Mark Zuckerberg's enemy,
the Bitcoin billionaires. This video looks at the rise of bitcoin,
including its ties to Silk Road, and you can click
here right now to what's the insaneful story for yourself. Finally,

(01:22:11):
I just want to say thank you for watching this
video to the end. You are a legend and I'll
see you in the next one. Cheers again.

Speaker 8 (01:23:11):
Bringing something to do?

Speaker 9 (01:23:13):
Say you want to talk to?

Speaker 8 (01:23:25):
Bring you something to say?

Speaker 11 (01:23:30):
I said, and I watched the chassl SID, but I've
had the chasles.

Speaker 12 (01:23:36):
I only mind remiss. I've been from making taking with
the fun that you're breaking in again.

Speaker 9 (01:23:44):
This was still with.

Speaker 11 (01:23:50):
Myself for a.

Speaker 10 (01:23:52):
Changing the crest, laughing under the pot.

Speaker 9 (01:24:00):
Then started to put the past ten send them to
see pas.

Speaker 8 (01:24:11):
The same.

Speaker 10 (01:24:12):
Now play.

Speaker 9 (01:24:26):
Today. Say take you to bring yourself dot sae. Just
let the dot set the play. It's called the doctor,
say you think you think to bring yourself and dot see,

(01:24:50):
just let the dot see.

Speaker 7 (01:24:54):
Say just talking to again the previous man, I'm will
get you.

Speaker 11 (01:25:01):
Then the puperastation as all the way to check my
play you pulling like stream beginning to be a little
bit but sweats when you won't trust, I'm just just
make you.

Speaker 8 (01:25:16):
Creaming because the blue little on your bed.

Speaker 9 (01:25:18):
The brig better. I just resistance to the weather and
l getting the counting, the get to preach and the
passion your brast to.

Speaker 10 (01:25:32):
See the country I have the satisi.

Speaker 9 (01:25:38):
The more so just can be wearing the more part
the spirit child I've been talking about. And they out
this consumer.

Speaker 8 (01:25:47):
To pay the over.

Speaker 9 (01:25:49):
People walking when they come and say, get you to
looking freaking sat see, just let the don.

Speaker 7 (01:25:59):
Say if the pray.

Speaker 8 (01:26:06):
You go?

Speaker 13 (01:26:06):
Did you go.

Speaker 9 (01:26:09):
There?

Speaker 13 (01:26:10):
Up?

Speaker 8 (01:26:12):
It's just like them scene.

Speaker 13 (01:26:48):
Becoming out of the Monica God, but the mother the
donning them a brain.

Speaker 9 (01:26:53):
I'm a main bay, another bag and prey in the
own day.

Speaker 1 (01:27:11):
What the w to anything?

Speaker 12 (01:27:13):
He said, we don't.

Speaker 7 (01:27:15):
Really have to promise you, but the last week the.

Speaker 10 (01:27:19):
Grand one like you do really wanting.

Speaker 9 (01:27:29):
We shall as the day in the way of.

Speaker 7 (01:27:36):
What is about them.

Speaker 13 (01:27:44):
I said, let me see the three compatity and time
saying anything not the name.

Speaker 1 (01:27:54):
And then it's the way the man said.

Speaker 7 (01:27:58):
We said get enough. That's something. But they's when they
bring out some society l what is a doctor.

Speaker 13 (01:28:16):
Not?

Speaker 10 (01:28:20):
So why is it dout the.

Speaker 12 (01:28:28):
Not get worrying out.

Speaker 9 (01:28:48):
Me out?

Speaker 7 (01:29:00):
Why did it bout down?

Speaker 9 (01:29:02):
Got it down to drag me down?

Speaker 12 (01:29:06):
So we didn't help down?

Speaker 10 (01:29:07):
You fucking mad things that what you told me said
wanted to dump down thout drag me down, so we
didn't help that.

Speaker 3 (01:29:19):
You get out.

Speaker 9 (01:29:20):
I like you talking about what is it about that?

(01:29:49):
I guess you rap.

Speaker 4 (01:29:55):
What it so?

Speaker 8 (01:29:58):
Wanted to buck down?

Speaker 10 (01:30:01):
I get to try, I said, so can you try
to break about?

Speaker 4 (01:30:14):
But you look at bad big can't make me out
and be the dad. If you look at you, that's easy.

Speaker 12 (01:30:52):
You want to go, you go with me?

Speaker 4 (01:31:02):
You got to.

Speaker 8 (01:31:05):
Say like you go with me?

Speaker 7 (01:31:09):
Taking you ba.

Speaker 10 (01:31:21):
In the parts of the.

Speaker 7 (01:31:24):
Just to fut end the contact until the moment I'm
saying it.

Speaker 1 (01:31:31):
When this some talking world from the world away eis.

Speaker 2 (01:31:35):
People are talking about break about the sisters talking about.

Speaker 7 (01:31:38):
This is host is like you, oh my talking something

(01:32:00):
the guy getting the bad.

Speaker 1 (01:32:04):
Where to be taken, the the was the.

Speaker 13 (01:32:08):
Before something I never start those when he started straight order.

Speaker 7 (01:32:14):
David is all of the team and the long one
is a Ben Broke in the breeding.

Speaker 12 (01:32:28):
Your mom.

Speaker 3 (01:32:43):
By say.

Speaker 8 (01:32:49):
My down.

Speaker 9 (01:32:52):
Was my dies.

Speaker 7 (01:33:15):
Dies second.

Speaker 4 (01:33:39):
S gonna take you.

Speaker 15 (01:34:16):
No bastle to do to buy my say play for
my dolcol Man SA or stuff.

Speaker 9 (01:34:42):
You play and thank Jog gets a past shock.

Speaker 3 (01:34:55):
To friend you thank God, so.

Speaker 10 (01:35:24):
Pay off Brad anything.

Speaker 12 (01:35:36):
Basic, take Tama part Day, the Samtop.

Speaker 7 (01:36:31):
Friends again, a fame.

Speaker 9 (01:36:42):
Ability, the build.

Speaker 7 (01:36:46):
The same taboo.

Speaker 3 (01:37:37):
So the way my mom my mother.

Speaker 9 (01:38:14):
Don't not so much

Speaker 7 (01:38:23):
That they love me, so I

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