Feds Finally Shut Down Silk Road, the Underground Website Notorious For Drug Trafficking

It was bound to happen.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Silk Road was launched in 2011, and quickly became the Amazon of guns and drugs.

With BitCoin, you were able to buy anything from molly to LSD (and some not so illegal drugs, as well). After a good almost three year run, Silk Road had been shut down by the FBI, charging its owner, Ross William Ulbricht, with one count each of narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. Silk Road is was located in the dark part of the Internet called Deep Web, and you could only access it through the Tor Network, a system that blocks people from being able to watch what you're doing online and fights against traffic analysis. According to FBI documents, Ulbricht knowingly violated U.S. narcotic laws: 

'From in or about 2011, up to and including in or about September 2013, ROSS WILLIAM ULBRICHT, a/k/a “Dread Pirate Roberts,” a/k/a “DPR,” a/k/a “Silk Road,” the defendant, owned and operated an underground website, known as “Silk Road,” that provided a platform for drug dealers around the world to sell a wide variety of controlled substances via the Internet.'

Documents also say that Silk Road did $1.2 billion in sales, amounting to $80 million in commissions.

Check it out:

Ulbricht Criminal Complaint

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