Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Alleged Founder Of Silk Road Accused Of Trying To Take A Hit Out on Blackmailer

Ross Ulbricht — the founder of Silk Road, a marketplace for buying illegal drugs — allegedly tried to take a hit out on one of the site's users, according to a new criminal complaint. He allegedly offered 1,670 bitcoins (worth $150,000) for the job, reports Business Insider.
A Silk Road user called "FriendlyChemist" began sending Ulbricht the threatening messages in March of this year, according to the complaint. "Friendly Chemist" told DPR he would publish the names and addresses of Silk Road customers unless he gave him $500,000, according to authorities. 

DPR then allegedly contacted another user called "redandwhite," saying he'd like a "bounty" on "FriendlyChemist's" head. They allegedly agreed on a price of 1,670 Bitcoins. Redandwhite then wrote DPR back and said "I received the payment ... We know where he is. He'll be grabbed tonight. I'll update you."

Here was that update from "redandwhite": "Your problem has been taken care of ... Rest easy though, because he won't be blackmailing anyone again. Ever."

There's not a record of DPR actually killing anybody. But the FBI's complaint said the exchanges demonstrate "DPR's intention to solicit a murder-for-hire" — with Bitcoins.

14 comments:

  1. Says in the complaint that he signed up under his real name at Mises and then had a link to Mises on every post he made at Silk Road under a pseudonym (page 26). Pretty stupid move for someone who is trying to thumb their nose at the Feds.

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  2. As if the koch brothers or any other multimillionaire wouldn't have done the same to protect $80M/year income.

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  3. He was probably setup. But assuming it was real, it was extortion and not blackmail (though the two is conflated here).

    It is analogous to someone threatening to use force i.e. pointing a gun, if he doesn't get $500,000.

    The only difference is that he is threatening state violence i.e. pointing the state guns at the users as an assured consequence of revealing their identities, if he doesn't get $500,000.

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    1. I know Walter Block doesn't believe blackmail is a crime - Defending the Un-defendable. So your charge of extortion allows me to press on and make this connection, which is really a question or a musing:

      Assuming that a NAP crime was threatened against him, in what ways does hiring a hit-man resemble hiring a private protection agency, and in what ways does it NOT resemble a private protection agency in an Anarchist society?

      It may not be a great question, but I am fascinated by it none-the-less.

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    2. From a moral point of view, it's the same (in this case). DPR and his customers were the victims of criminal aggression. He had every right to defend them and himself.

      Since the extortion relied on the threat of government action, the situation would not arise in an anarchist society.

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    3. In an anarchist society it is possible that this could have been adjudicated by a private judge and it is also likely that the sentence produced would be less than the death penalty. Alas, we are not there yet.

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  4. Smells like a setup to me.

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  5. The messages concerning murder-for-hire, if genuine, don't reflect well on DPR. He allegedly hired complete strangers to kill a complete stranger. (He also mentions having paid for at least one prior "hit," in the context of complaining about the price being asked for this one.) He could not have known much about these "contractors" or their target, given the anonymity of their interactions. He allegedly did find some personal information about the target, which he passed on to the assassins, but how could he verify the correctness of this information?

    He allegedly said the killing didn't have to be "clean." Given that Roberts allegedly informed the would-be assassins that the target had a wife and three kids, just what would a "messy" killing entail? Stabbing the guy to death in front of his children? Blowing up the house with everyone inside? Clean or messy, this response to blackmail is neither just nor libertarian. It is simply the type of gangsterism that is typical of the state itself, and of black market operators who care more about maintaining their income stream than their humanity.

    Engaging in non-rights-violative, black market transactions is compatible with libertarian ethics. But it is taking a chance that you might be caught, arrested and harmed by the state. Killing someone to avoid detection is not libertarian.

    If this story is true, it only helps the state to discredit libertarian ideas by association with DPR. If it is true, I wish he would have shut up about Mises and Austrian economics, and stuck to playing at drug kingpin.

    Furthermore, it appears that DPR got duped by his would-be assassins-for-hire. If so, he's a fool who parted with $150,000 worth of bitcoins in exchange for a staged photograph of a pretend killing. Still, better that than have actually succeeded at murder.

    I hope it isn't true. I don't accept the FBI's word at face value. They are liars and killers themselves, and this could be just another lie designed to discredit resistance to state power.

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    1. You always have the right to defend yourself and others against aggression.

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  6. lol most probably the blackmailer was of the FBI or this stuff has been completely invented to make him seem a "terrorist" and an "enemy of national security"

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    1. True to the last 2 posts. The state gets power by assigning crimes to someone. that cannot or will not ever be proved. The state is desperate for a good story to distract the minions, as the Gov shut down is drawing peep's.

      I'm not buying the assassin crap, he could have just cut him out of the site!

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  7. Am I the only one that doesn't care that he tried to have someone killed who was extorting him? He created the site with libertarian/non-gangter ideals and then someone hacked it and tried to go all gangster on him, so he had to go gangster back. For everyone else who plays by the rules, they don't get subjected to hits. Moral of the story, don't try and extort the rich and powerful.

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    1. I agree with you completely. The is nothing "un-libertarian" about defend oneself and other innocent victims against criminal aggressors.

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    2. (Taking the FBI account as truth here for the sake of argument)

      He tried to have someone killed in such a way that he would not, and could not, be held liable if his "assassins" ended up killing an innocent person, or terrorizing the victim's wife and children, etc.

      Also, what about the concept of proportional force?

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