For those of you who aren’t aware, Silk Road was an online bazaar for drugs and other illicit products that allowed buyers and sellers to conduct business anonymously using Tor and Bitcoin but was taken down by the FBI in 2013. Since then, a California man by the name of Ross Ulbricht who founded the website has been facing numerous legal charges. Today, he has finally been convicted on all counts.
Today in a federal courthouse in Manhattan, Ross Ulbricht has been found guilty of charges stemming from his role in the founding and operation of the Silk Road. After nearly four hours of deliberation, the jury found Ulbricht guilty on all seven counts, including charges of narcotics conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, and engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise. The Silk Road offered a platform for quasi-anonymous transactions, shielded by Tor’s anonymity network and the transaction-masking properties of Bitcoin, and hosted more than $100 million in drug transactions before it was shut down by law enforcement in October of 2013.
