0:14

Hey. What's up everybody?

0:16

Welcome back. To Mile Hire podcast

0:19

episode two hundred and thirty six.

0:21

And today, we have a very interesting

0:23

episode for you all. On a topic

0:25

that I'm sure some of you have

0:27

heard of, but maybe many of you

0:30

have not. And there's

0:32

just a lot of interesting information that

0:34

I feel like A lot of controversy too.

0:36

Oh, yeah. Big time. And I think we're

0:38

gonna get into some interesting conversations today.

0:42

We're gonna be talking about the Silk Road.

0:44

And Ross Ulbrichts.

0:46

And the dark web really -- Yeah. -- because

0:48

that's where a lot of this takes place. Some wild

0:50

shit. We haven't really you

0:53

know, dive into the dark web too much

0:55

here on Model Hire. Mhmm. But you're in there.

0:57

That's a it's a it's a topic that I

0:59

think is hard for a lot of people to kinda wrap their minds

1:01

around because you know, we all think

1:03

of the Internet as, you know, just being

1:05

Google on these websites and everything, but not

1:07

realizing that we're all of us on a

1:09

daily basis only access like

1:11

the top layer, the surface

1:14

layer of the Internet, but the Internet

1:16

actually has deep

1:18

deep abuses within it.

1:21

Yes. That's the average person can't

1:23

access because that's

1:25

where a lot of, like, governments put

1:28

their data and things like that in these other

1:30

deeper layers. And so it wasn't until

1:32

the US Navy developed this browser

1:34

called Tor, or the

1:37

onion router which eventually

1:39

became open source and now anybody

1:41

can download it and through it you can actually

1:43

access these deeper layers

1:45

or the dark net through

1:47

it. And this is where

1:50

the silk road existed and

1:52

may still exist in different

1:55

forms, but there's a lot of things

1:57

and a lot of good

1:59

and bad things that reside there.

2:01

And so today, we're gonna taking a look at

2:04

this marketplace that Ross Ulberg

2:06

created that allows you to

2:09

go on and much like an eBay

2:11

or an Amazon, you could

2:13

just log on through, you know, anybody was

2:15

able to download this this

2:17

tour browser log in,

2:19

get the address for the

2:21

Silk Road. And once you got there,

2:23

you could just go crazy, go shopping for all

2:25

sorts of different drugs,

2:28

weapons, body parts.

2:30

Basically, all the things that would be highly

2:32

regulated in normal

2:35

society, you could then purchase

2:37

through the silk road with

2:39

Bitcoin. So this is going back to

2:42

when Bitcoin first started, you know, first

2:44

became a

2:46

public digital asset.

2:49

And It's interesting because

2:51

I I come from a technology background.

2:54

And around this time, I was

2:56

I was working for Geek Squad And

2:58

I remember talking with

3:00

many of my colleagues about the Silk Road and some

3:02

of them would would mess around on there. And I

3:04

was always a little too paranoid because I was still

3:07

I was still kind of into criminal justice and

3:09

I was like, you know, there's a lot of

3:11

iffy things there and, you know, I was

3:13

always paranoid about being tracked

3:15

down or you know, going

3:17

somewhere I wasn't supposed to and, you

3:19

know, the Because I always knew that this

3:21

place exists and if we are all able to

3:23

access it, guess who else is accessing it?

3:26

Law enforcement. Mhmm. Law enforcement is

3:28

all over the place on there. Yeah. And so

3:31

as, you know, as a young

3:34

young man, it's seems very

3:36

cool to be able to go on there and be like, oh, I'm gonna

3:38

buy some drugs on there, buy, you know, some recreational,

3:41

you know, buy weed back then before

3:43

weed was legal. And you could.

3:45

And they would it would get shipped to you through the

3:47

mail, and there was, like, a review And

3:49

so Ross created

3:52

the platform for this to exist.

3:54

And now there's a lot of controversy of

3:56

how much was he involved in

3:58

the different trades that were going on there and

4:01

sort of all the drama that unfolds as

4:03

this thing grows. But

4:05

this whole concept of silk road and

4:08

The dark net is a very interesting one to me,

4:11

and I'm very excited dive into that

4:13

today. Yeah. Me too. So we're gonna talk

4:15

about how Ross started

4:17

the Silk Road and how

4:20

almost three years after it got

4:22

launched, it was seized by the feds

4:24

and he was arrested. It's

4:27

a like Josh did a very controversial

4:29

case, and we are super

4:31

excited to hear what you guys think of it

4:33

all. So let's just jump in here

4:35

and talk a little bit more about

4:37

Ross. So Ross Ulbrichts

4:41

was born on March twenty seventh

4:43

nineteen eighty eight in Austin, Texas to his

4:45

parents Lynn and Kirk Albert. He had an

4:47

older sister named Kala, and they all lived pretty

4:49

normal lives in the suburbs

4:51

of Austin. Growing up, he was

4:53

a boy scout who earned the rank of Eaglescout

4:55

eventually. And Ross and his parents

4:57

spent their summers building houses in Costa

4:59

Rica where he learned

5:01

to serve. In high school, his friends

5:03

called him Rossman, he was a

5:05

very free spirited person, but

5:07

also very smart. He was a sort of

5:09

kid in high school who surfed and

5:11

smoked a lot of weed, but still

5:13

scored in the ninety eight percentile on

5:16

his s a t's. Jealous? Yeah.

5:19

Amazing. Ross also got a scholarship

5:21

to the University of Texas

5:23

at Dallas, and he majored in physics,

5:25

and naturally he earned high marks.

5:27

His hard work in college paid off with a scholarship

5:30

to grad school at Penn State. And

5:32

while he was there, he studied crystallography.

5:34

I did not even know this was a thing, but it's

5:36

the study of atomic and molecular

5:39

structure of crystals. And

5:41

he started dating a girl named Julia while

5:43

he was at Penn State. But he

5:45

wasn't exactly thrilled to be doing lab

5:47

research all the time and he started to question

5:49

whether or not he should switch fields.

5:51

Instead of pursuing a scientific career, he

5:53

was thinking about pivoting to something in

5:55

economics. In college,

5:57

Ross had a budding interest in

5:59

Easter, philosophy, psychedelics,

6:02

and libertarianism. And the more he

6:04

developed these interests, the more he felt like

6:06

he was destined for something different.

6:08

And as a libertarian, of course, Ross

6:10

thought that taxation was theft,

6:12

the less government, the better, and

6:15

individual freedom was one of the most

6:17

important human rights. His

6:19

ultimate goal was freedom, not just

6:21

for himself, but for others too.

6:23

But Ross ended up sticking with his master's

6:25

program, and he graduated in two thousand nine.

6:27

And from there, he and his girlfriend ended

6:29

up moving back to Austin. And

6:31

Ross started day trading around this time.

6:34

He also tried to start a video games company,

6:36

but both of these ventures were robust.

6:39

Ross had given up a career in science to

6:41

pursue business and now he felt

6:43

like he'd failed. But a good business

6:45

opportunity eventually did come

6:47

knocking. He and his downstairs neighbor

6:49

became partners in a used book reseller

6:52

called GoodWagon Books. By the

6:54

end of two thousand ten, Ross was thinking about

6:56

starting another business venture, but he wanted

6:58

to do something that would incorporate Bitcoin.

7:01

Back then, your average person had no

7:03

idea what cryptocurrency was.

7:05

Ross discovered Bitcoin in his day

7:07

trading days. He loved that the currency

7:09

was untraceable and not tied to

7:11

any central bank. Instead,

7:13

the prices were determined by the market

7:15

alone. So Bitcoin really matched

7:17

well with Ross' libertarian political

7:20

philosophy. And as you may

7:22

guess, Ross also had a strong belief

7:24

that drug use was a personal

7:26

choice and it wasn't something that the government should

7:28

interfere with. He was a strong opponent

7:30

of the war on drugs and he believed that

7:32

people should be able to buy and sell drugs

7:34

as they pleased. So this

7:36

belief, along with the libertarianism and

7:38

Bitcoin, all combined

7:40

to form Ross' new business

7:43

idea. He was going to make something

7:45

revolutionary. It would be an online

7:47

marketplace where users could buy and sell

7:49

drugs anonymously. Ross

7:51

actually wrote on his LinkedIn, I

7:54

am creating an economic simulation

7:56

to give people a firsthand experience

7:58

of what it would be like to live in a world.

8:00

Without the systemic use of

8:02

force. So he toyed around with

8:04

the name for a little while. He

8:06

didn't know exactly what to call this

8:09

marketplace. At one point, he considered

8:11

the name underground brokers,

8:13

but it wasn't the perfect fit. But

8:15

finally, Ross settled on a name for

8:17

the marketplace. Silk road.

8:20

I think the name silk road is actually

8:22

very fitting for this because if you don't

8:24

know what the silk road is, There

8:26

actually was a real silk road that existed

8:28

long ago that was actually a trade route linking

8:30

China with the west. And it basically

8:33

just allowed you know, goods and ideas to be

8:35

carried between the great civilizations

8:37

of Rome and China. That's

8:39

how religious ideas got

8:41

passed and and all sorts of different

8:43

goods and and

8:44

trades. So I think Silk Road was

8:46

actually a really good name for it because

8:48

it's kind of You know? Creative

8:50

little twist. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of paying

8:52

tribute to, you know, this

8:54

ancient trade route that, you know,

8:56

he's kind of modernized but in a

8:58

different way --

8:59

Mhmm. -- different goods. Yeah. Kind

9:01

of like and if, you know, you know, thing.

9:03

Mhmm. So you're probably

9:05

wondering how Ross was planning to

9:07

just launch this website. I mean, after all, you

9:09

can't just launch the drug dealing

9:11

version of Amazon on the regular

9:13

Internet. You know, in full view of the

9:15

authorities. He needed to learn

9:17

computer programming so he could launch

9:19

the site on the dark web. So we're

9:21

gonna dive into the dark web a little bit

9:23

because it's a big part of this story

9:25

clearly. Yeah. So let's take a look at what the

9:27

difference is between the surface web, the deep

9:29

web, and the dark web. So like I

9:31

kind of mentioned at the beginning of the episode,

9:33

the SurfaceWeb is basically the Internet that the

9:35

general public commonly uses every day,

9:37

it's such you access through Google

9:38

Chrome, Internet. Floor, I guess, it's called

9:41

EdgeNow or Firefox. And

9:43

that's where you access your

9:44

email. Yeah. It's called Microsoft Edge.

9:48

I didn't know that. Yeah. Well, you haven't

9:50

used a Microsoft device in a long time, so

9:52

probably want it now.

9:53

Apple all day. Anyways,

9:56

obviously, SurfaceWeb, that's where you do your

9:58

email, YouTube, that's where you're watching this

10:00

episode. It's just your everyday browsing. But then

10:02

there's another layer of the Internet known as the

10:04

deep web. And the deep web is basically any

10:06

website that isn't indexed by

10:08

a search engine like Google, like

10:10

duck dot go and many other search engines

10:13

out there. So these websites,

10:15

in order to access them, you need a direct

10:17

URL to get to them or a

10:19

password. So, you know, you wouldn't

10:21

know how to find those websites because most

10:23

of us order to find where we're

10:25

going on the Internet. We're using some sort

10:27

of search engine, so it's not actually

10:29

ever gonna come up in those search

10:31

results. But the part of the Internet that we're gonna

10:33

be focusing on today is known as the

10:35

dark web or dark net. And to

10:37

get to dark net sites, you need

10:39

special software or configurations. On

10:42

the dark web, users can exchange data and

10:44

view websites anonymously without any of

10:46

their info being tracked. For that reason,

10:48

the dark net is great for people trying to get

10:50

around government censorship. Or

10:52

whistleblower's like Edward Snowden. Because

10:54

like on the regular Internet, ISP,

10:56

Internet service providers seeing

10:58

all of the data that

11:00

you are you know, passing over

11:02

the Internet. All the websites you're going to, all your

11:04

traffic is monitored and kept

11:06

in logs somewhere at the data

11:08

center for these different Internet service

11:10

providers. And so that's why

11:12

VPNs and, you know, services

11:14

like express VPN are

11:17

great because, you know, they they

11:19

allow you to help

11:21

encrypt that information and also hide

11:23

your location, hide your IP address because

11:25

all everybody's Internet

11:27

connected device has an IP address. And so your

11:29

IP address is traceable. So

11:31

if you ever do something illegal

11:33

on your computer device, the

11:35

authorities are gonna go to the Internet service provider.

11:37

They're gonna figure out what's your IP addresses

11:39

and then they're able to find

11:41

your your geolocation that

11:42

way. And you would think no one would really

11:45

use this, like, or at least most people wouldn't. But

11:47

then I was looking more into there's actually,

11:49

like, a ton of people who are on the dark

11:51

web. Oh,

11:51

yeah. There's tons of

11:52

shit. Like,

11:52

kind of well, kind of blows my mind because I

11:55

feel like, you know, you think, oh,

11:57

just like a select Yeah. Exactly. But it's

11:59

actually quite common. And I think people even use

12:01

it not knowing the fact that they're

12:03

on it. Which is kinda interesting.

12:05

Like, I was reading this one article. It's from

12:07

twenty twenty, so it's kinda old. But it says, dark web

12:09

activity has increased by three hundred

12:11

percent in the last three years. In

12:13

twenty nineteen, a survey showed that nearly

12:15

twenty five percent of North Americans use the dark

12:17

web to ensure their privacy from foreign governments and

12:19

another thirty eight percent usage to protect their

12:21

privacy from Internet

12:22

companies. So Well,

12:24

you gotta think you're somewhere where

12:27

you have oh, there's places in the world, there's

12:30

countries where the government sensors, the Internet.

12:32

Right? And so if you're on the

12:34

surface web, all of that is

12:36

being censored and, you know, like there's

12:38

blocks and filters. And so to get

12:40

around that, you can go you know, through

12:42

these to the dark net.

12:44

And which again, like, there's different

12:46

there's different content available there.

12:48

Like, to navigate it is is

12:50

very very different from

12:52

the surface web. You definitely have to have some

12:54

technical knowledge to get your way around

12:56

because it's not like there's easy ways to to

12:58

find exactly what you're looking for. You gotta

13:00

kinda know, you know, the pathways to

13:02

find those different things.

13:04

But The dark web is probably most

13:06

famous for its illegal activity. I think that's what

13:08

most of us think when we hear dark net -- Mhmm. --

13:10

we're like illegal shit's going

13:12

on. Well, that's because there's all

13:14

sorts of things going on there, like buying and selling

13:16

drugs, selling credit cards, fake IDs, and

13:18

passports, and counterfeit money. But these

13:20

services are actually on the mild side of

13:22

the dark web, sadly. Going further, you have

13:24

people use the dark web to buy and sell legal weapons

13:26

or stolen goods. And the dark web

13:28

has also been used as a communication

13:30

platform for extremist or black hat

13:32

hackers. Because again, it's it's

13:35

the the key is being able to remain

13:37

anonymous there 236 not being traced, which is why these types of

13:39

people like the dark net. But then there's

13:41

even darker and

13:43

more depraved areas of the dark web

13:45

that's being used for murder for hire,

13:47

stuff films, child pornography, and

13:49

terrorism. So obviously, governments across the

13:51

world have a huge interest in trying to stop

13:53

these darkness. Markets, and services,

13:55

so they spend a lot of resources monitoring

13:57

and infiltrating communities on the dark web.

14:00

With the right technology and operational

14:02

security, Users can stay truly

14:04

anonymous, meaning their information is hidden

14:06

even from authorities, which

14:08

that does help you to some extent, but

14:10

because there's agents infiltrating these

14:13

places, even where the darkest most

14:15

appraised shit's going on, There's

14:18

obviously always a risk that you're gonna be interacting

14:20

with law enforcement on there and you will never

14:22

know. So, you know, that's oftentimes

14:24

how they figure out you know,

14:26

how to take down people and figure out people's

14:28

identities is you have to go and basically

14:30

be like a catfish or social

14:32

engineering and Work

14:34

people that way. Like I mentioned earlier, the

14:36

most famous dark web network is Tor,

14:38

which stands for the onion router, which

14:40

Tor was originally launched by the Navy in

14:42

two thousand as a way to communicate on the Internet anonymously.

14:44

Today, anyone can download the software

14:46

and tour users can access hidden

14:48

services on the onion network. And

14:50

basically websites with the domain dot

14:52

onion. So like we kind of explained

14:54

before, a big part of the dark web is markets, and

14:56

the preferred currencies are different

14:58

kinds cryptocurrency is most famously, Bitcoin.

15:02

The reason that crypto became the default currency

15:04

on the Silk Road is that it couldn't be

15:06

tracked, like, fiat

15:08

money could. If you're buying legal drugs online, you're

15:10

not gonna be using your American Express

15:12

card. You're gonna have to go with your

15:14

anonymous Bitcoin. So now that we've got

15:16

over the basics of the dark web,

15:18

we're gonna jump back into the making of the silk

15:20

road anonymous marketplace. So

15:22

Ross had to put in

15:25

loads and loads of work he had to learn

15:27

how to computer program. I mean,

15:29

cropping up a website especially

15:31

on the dark net in a marketplace

15:34

is from scratch is like no easy

15:37

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number one meal kit. So Ross

17:20

launched Silk Road in late January of two thousand

17:22

eleven. Not only did he spend the past

17:24

few months programming the site he had been

17:26

growing ten pounds of magic mushrooms,

17:29

Hell yeah. And after all, the site needed its first product,

17:31

so Ross was gonna provide that.

17:33

He was Silk Road's first vendor.

17:36

But if nobody knows your website that you just built,

17:38

who's gonna come by your

17:41

shrooms? Well, Ross had to get the word

17:43

out somehow. So he put

17:45

up a post on Shrumery, an online form for magic

17:48

mushrooms. Under the screen name, Altoid

17:50

Ross wrote a post posing as a

17:52

potential buyer.

17:54

Honestly,

17:54

pretty smart. Smart.

17:55

But as we'll find out later, not so

17:58

smart. Yeah. Yeah. That's true.

18:00

But a good way to get business. Yeah. I

18:02

mean, that's smart way to get people to come to your

18:04

side is just be like, oh, yeah. I just someone will

18:06

punt across this -- Mhmm. -- while it's shop

18:08

online. If he knew the

18:10

future, of Silk Road. And Yeah. Every I

18:12

would have done this a little differently. But he said

18:14

I came across this website called Silk Road. It's

18:16

a tour hidden service that claims to allow you to buy

18:18

and sell anything online anonymously.

18:21

I'm thinking of buying off of it, but want to see

18:23

if anyone here had heard of it and could recommend

18:26

it. Let me know what you think. After he posted

18:28

this, the buyer started coming.

18:30

Ross made his first sale and then

18:32

another. And then another. And

18:34

soon all ten pounds of the shrooms

18:36

were gone. But then more

18:38

vendors started to trickle in and started selling their

18:40

own goods to anonymous buyers.

18:42

Ross ended up handling each transaction by hand

18:44

while the market grew. Hundreds of listings

18:46

started popping up 236 the list of different drugs

18:48

users could purchase grew, and the

18:50

word started to spread. By

18:52

June, the blog Gocker had published an article about

18:54

the site. Only a few days later, US

18:56

senator Chuck Schumer called the news conference and

18:58

asked the feds shut down that

19:00

website. Well, that

19:02

was lit. Pretty accurate.

19:05

Yeah. All of this media attention

19:07

basically served as an advertisement for

19:09

the site. Thanks, Chuck. Overnight

19:11

it exploded in growth. Now there were

19:13

thousands of listings and tens of thousands of users

19:15

on the site daily. Ross was completely

19:18

overwhelmed and obviously spooked by the

19:19

attention, but he was now the creator of

19:22

something huge, something bigger

19:24

than himself. Yeah. A

19:26

little things that restricted items do not list

19:28

anything whose purpose is to harm or

19:30

defraud, such as stolen items or info, stolen

19:32

credit cards, counterfeit currency, personal

19:34

info, assassinations, and weapons of any kind. Do

19:36

not list anything related to pedophilia.

19:39

So that was the restrictions on the

19:41

marketplace at the time. So Ross

19:43

felt like it was his responsibility to make sure that

19:45

the site reflected his vision and ethics.

19:48

Silk Road wouldn't sell anything that sole

19:50

purpose was to harm others. So

19:52

no hitman, no stolen goods,

19:54

no child born. But in terms of

19:57

drugs, yeah, no weapons. But in terms of

19:59

drugs, you could get anything you

20:01

wanted. I mean, talking anything. The amount of

20:03

different listings for different products was really something

20:05

to behold. You could have anything

20:07

from fish scale, cocaine,

20:10

to rainbow sheets of LSD, all the way

20:12

to black tar heroin. There was

20:14

also multiple categories that vendors listed their

20:17

drugs under, like cannabis, disassociatives,

20:20

excess opioids, prescriptions,

20:23

psychedelics, stimulants, precursors, and

20:25

others. You can even get pharmaceuticals like

20:27

atorol, Xanax, OxyContin,

20:29

you can even get pure MDMA, a

20:32

rainbow of candy shaped ecstasy

20:34

pills, and an alphabet soup of different

20:36

designer drugs, and research chemicals

20:38

even. There's also a variety of other goods for sale

20:40

on the site, like art, drug paraphernalia,

20:43

drug manufacturing guides, fake

20:45

designer goods, offshore banking manuals, and

20:47

pirated software. It was an

20:49

inventory beyond what any street dealer

20:51

could ever offer. You just had to be smart

20:53

enough to get on the site and not

20:55

get caught. But beyond the technical

20:57

stuff, buying drugs on Silk Road was pretty

20:59

easy. So now let's take

21:01

you through a sample transaction. Let's say

21:03

you wanted to buy ten excesses

21:05

pills. After you had all your tech stuff ready to go and you'd bought your

21:07

Bitcoin, you'd log on to silk road and

21:09

start browsing. Once you found the perfect listing,

21:11

you just add the drugs to your cart and

21:14

hit purchase. And send the bitcoins to the

21:16

vendor. You'd also send the vendor your

21:18

shipping address, which believe it or not using your

21:20

real name and the address was safer than a

21:22

fake one. Then you just

21:24

wait, pray a little bit hope that what you

21:26

ordered actually shows up. But

21:28

oftentimes drugs would be hidden some sort

21:30

of stealth item like a DVD case or

21:32

lotion bottle in order to hide it from

21:34

customs because a lot of this was coming

21:36

from overseas. Like magic, those ten

21:38

excesses pills would show up to your door as if you'd

21:40

ordered something off of eBay. But

21:42

obviously, this had risks, the most

21:44

obvious one being, of course, getting caught by

21:46

the authorities. At the Fed's intercepted the

21:48

package, two things could happen. If you

21:50

were lucky, you'd just get a seizure notice

21:52

nicknamed a love letter. Basically, the

21:54

letter would say your package is being held on

21:56

suspicion of containing drugs, and

21:58

the package would be destroyed in thirty days unless

22:00

you claimed it. From there on out, the

22:02

police would be monitoring your

22:04

mail. So be stupid to try order to that address again.

22:06

Then there is the risk of a

22:08

controlled delivery. This is basically sort of

22:10

a setup or a sting operation

22:13

Your package would be delivered to your door and the postman

22:15

would usually ask for a signature. But

22:17

as soon as you signed or took the

22:19

package inside, undercover cops would leap out the

22:21

bushes and arrest you. This was

22:23

what I was afraid That's why I never ventured on there too

22:26

far. But buyers also

22:28

ran the risk of being scammed

22:30

by vendors. didn't ship product

22:32

or sold fake drugs. There was

22:34

also the rare possibility that vendors would try

22:36

and extort you, basically threatening you

22:38

with your name and address to try

22:40

to get you to pay up.

22:42

But many users believe that these risks were much

22:44

more preferable to the risks of street

22:46

dealing, Silk Road to save them from sketchy

22:48

or dangerous situations with street dealers

22:50

and the cops. Online users could

22:52

avoid the violence as typical in

22:54

the offline drug world. The

22:56

website also help people get fewer drugs rather than

22:58

buying street drugs that have likely been

23:01

adulterated or laced.

23:03

A

23:03

part of that I think is honestly smart, especially

23:06

now. Mhmm. I

23:06

mean, we all

23:07

know that the fentanyl crisis is

23:10

ripping through this country right now. It's

23:13

terrifying. And, you know, if you

23:15

buy it online and you're

23:17

able to buy it

23:19

from these people who have good

23:21

reviews and 236. Mhmm.

23:24

Then your likelihood of

23:26

getting something pure goes up because if people

23:28

are selling a bunch of shit, then no

23:30

one's gonna buy from that seller. So they had to,

23:32

like, you know, keep their

23:34

reputation high. What if you're one of the first

23:36

few buyers? Right.

23:38

Yeah. Well, that's

23:38

a risk then -- Yeah. -- that you have to be willing to

23:40

take. Hopefully, there's a discount for

23:42

that. But I

23:42

guess -- Let's go ahead and buy her. -- safer than just buying

23:45

it off the street. It's still

23:45

in some ways. Yeah. It's not like that

23:48

person has reviews. Which someone's argument is like,

23:50

oh, well, you know, you buy a drug on

23:52

there and What if he died? How can you leave a

23:54

review? You know,

23:56

like, if you were to buy some bad jokes.

23:58

But but then again, like, most

24:00

people who would go on the marketplace were looking

24:02

for this you you know, you could filter

24:04

the vendors buy ratings and and feedback.

24:06

And so most people are probably buying

24:09

from a handful of vendors that are that are

24:11

reputable and getting good

24:12

reviews. And if it is laced, like, yes,

24:14

there's the chance that you die, but a lot of times people

24:16

take laced drugs and just have a

24:19

Right. Second. Don't price, then they'd probably go on there

24:21

and be, like, this fucked me up and not in a good way.

24:23

Yeah. Don't buy from this dude, you know. Yeah.

24:25

Plus the feedback system really helped

24:28

with you know, people's faith in

24:30

the system that they're not gonna get scammed.

24:32

Right? Like, that would be a big concern

24:34

if you're gonna go on there and drop some serious coin

24:37

on you know, a bunch of drugs, like, how do

24:39

you know you're actually gonna get those? And you're they're not

24:41

just gonna steal your money. Mhmm. You

24:43

know, like, that's definitely a risk

24:45

you're gonna take because scams really hurt

24:47

the silk road brand and community.

24:50

So Ross and the staff worked hard to prevent

24:52

them. And as we'll see later though, the lengths they'd

24:54

go to stop scams became pretty

24:56

ruthless. At just twenty six years old,

24:58

Ross was an online drug kingpin,

25:00

the likes of which had never seen before.

25:02

And he was also wanted by law

25:04

enforcement agencies in dozens of countries.

25:06

While there had been online drug

25:09

markets before Silk Road came

25:11

along, there were none what the sophistication and

25:14

popularity that Silk Road had. that

25:16

reason, Silk Road is considered the first

25:18

modern online drug market. But naturally,

25:20

with the success of Silk Road,

25:22

other people want to get in on the action.

25:24

So rival dark net markets started to

25:27

pop up. And the most notable

25:29

competitor was Atlantis, which

25:31

build itself as the Facebook to

25:34

Silkroads MySpace. But this market

25:36

was not as successful as Silk Road and it

25:38

actually shut down after three

25:40

months. But Silk Road was not

25:42

just a drug market to people. It

25:44

became its own community of like minded

25:46

people. And the spirit behind it is what

25:48

kept its popularity above

25:50

its competitors. The staff was thought of be

25:52

honest people with a vision or a

25:55

mission. Liberty and drugs for all.

25:57

And then in February of twenty

25:59

twelve, Ross decided he needed

26:01

a name on the silk

26:03

road, and he came up with dread

26:05

pirate Roberts or DPR for

26:07

short. And the name was taken from the

26:09

Princess bride as many of you probably recognize

26:11

and it was a pretty genius name

26:13

because it implied that more than one

26:15

person was running the account and the identity

26:17

could be passed on to other people

26:19

just like in the movie. So,

26:21

Brad Pirate Roberts would host some

26:23

fun little silk road book clubs.

26:25

Where he'd post writings of the libertarian economist

26:29

Ludwig von Mises and invite

26:31

users to discuss. The site would

26:33

also host movie watch parties. And

26:35

live discussions. So it

26:37

really did become a community. And by

26:39

this time, business was booming.

26:42

Ross was making millions of dollars in

26:44

commissions from the site. Sales

26:46

showed no sign of stopping even

26:48

with increased media attention and some

26:50

hiccups along the Some dealers

26:52

and users had been busted, and the

26:54

site became a target for hackers. Ross

26:57

was having to pay fifty thousand a

26:59

month to these hackers in protection

27:01

racket schemes, but

27:03

the site kept chugging along. And

27:05

with all this business coming in, Ross

27:07

knew that he couldn't manage the website on

27:09

his own. So he began recruiting

27:11

trusted users from the site to become

27:13

staff members. I mean keeping this

27:15

huge secret probably made Ross feel kind

27:17

of lonely, but these staff members became

27:20

his own little inner circle. The people in Ross'

27:22

life noticed that he was constantly

27:25

busy. He was very vague about what he was

27:27

doing and how he made money. basically

27:29

told them that he was involved in

27:31

day trading. Ross explained to his silk

27:33

road staff member, I have my

27:35

little alibi. I'm clever.

27:37

So I can be s what I need to. But it

27:39

was sort of frustrating living in

27:41

this double life. His friends

27:43

kept asking why he never had any

27:46

free time. And Ross wrote that he wished he could scream

27:48

because I'm running a goddamn multimillion

27:50

dollar criminal enterprise. But all

27:52

the secrecy put stressed

27:54

on his relationship with his girlfriend, Julia,

27:57

and Ross was always on his

27:59

computer. Whenever she would walk into the

28:01

room, he would slam it shut.

28:03

And obviously, That's not a great look. So

28:05

finally, Ross' constant work became

28:07

too much and they broke

28:09

up. So then one day, Ross's

28:11

childhood friend called and asked him to move to

28:13

San Francisco, and Ross jumped at

28:15

the chance. Two weeks after that

28:17

phone call, Ross was there. Ready

28:19

to control his startup from the

28:22

American Tech Mecha. And

28:24

around this time, his vision started

28:26

to shift. Before Ross had explicitly

28:29

banned firearms sales on the

28:31

website, but that changed when

28:33

the site added a weapons category

28:36

for listings. On February twenty six,

28:38

twenty twelve, DPR announced

28:40

that a separate site called the armory

28:42

was being created the sale of

28:44

small arms weaponry for the purpose

28:46

of self defense. But in August

28:48

of twenty twelve, DPR closed the armory

28:51

because it wasn't getting a lot of use. course,

28:53

the drug business continued to

28:55

thrive. The word about Silk Road had

28:57

spread

28:57

tremendously, and that meant that it ended

29:00

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29:02

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higher. And basically, what happened was the

30:32

US postal inspector service was

30:34

seeing an up tick in drugs being

30:36

sent through the mail. They were

30:38

catching a lot more of these packages than

30:40

usual. So at an interagency meeting,

30:42

they informed the BI, DEA,

30:45

IRS, and Homeland Security that there

30:47

were drugs coming in through a

30:49

website called the Silk Road. And of

30:51

course, the US government was not gonna just let

30:53

this one slide so they started their

30:55

investigation into the marketplace. And the goal

30:57

was to get the site shut down,

30:59

get the owner arrested, and

31:01

all the funds seized. But all

31:03

these different agencies were not having any

31:05

luck taking down Silk Road.

31:07

That is until an FBI agent

31:10

named Chris Harvel got on the

31:12

case. He was determined to be the

31:14

agent that brought down the silk

31:16

road. But other agents were just as determined.

31:18

Karl Marc Thors was a DEA agent

31:20

who started going undercover to try

31:22

an unmasked DPR. He

31:25

posed as knob, a cartel

31:27

operative based in the Dominican Republic.

31:29

And he messaged GPR and told him that

31:31

he was interested in buying the website.

31:34

DPR declined the offer, of course,

31:36

but he told Knob that the silk road

31:38

was bigger than he was imagining.

31:40

But the two continued to exchange messages

31:42

back and forth. Since Knob was

31:45

trying to get DPR to agree

31:47

to other business ventures. And

31:49

through their messages, the two of them ended up

31:51

developing some sort

31:53

of friendship. But neither knew

31:55

exactly who was on the other side of the

31:57

screen. As time went on, Ross

31:59

started to get cockier. Of course, was

32:01

under a lot of threats, hackers,

32:03

law enforcement, site vulnerabilities, and

32:05

more. And he was obviously stressed. But

32:07

he was making more money than he could

32:09

have ever imagined. And power he was

32:11

gaining from running the site may have gone to

32:13

his head a little. So that created some

32:16

blind spots in terms of

32:18

security. By mid-twenty twelve, Ross must

32:20

have had some idea that he needed an

32:22

exit plan, and the pressure was

32:25

on. He had a lot of money now

32:27

and he needed somewhere safe. To put

32:29

it. So he started researching

32:31

tax havens like Monte Carlo

32:33

and Endora, and he even

32:35

filed an application for citizenship

32:37

of the Caribbean country Dominica,

32:39

where they traded passports for

32:42

substantial economic investment. Ross

32:44

was making a lot of money off

32:46

the site. But for the most part, you couldn't

32:48

really tell because Ross had always been

32:50

a very frugal guy to the point where it caused

32:52

fights between him and his ex girlfriend.

32:55

He wasn't really interested in flashy things.

32:57

DPR. Actually explained on the forum

32:59

that not much about his spending habits

33:02

had changed. He could get nicer

33:04

groceries and some better clothes, and he

33:06

could treat his friends and family to dinner more

33:08

often, but he wasn't interested in

33:10

buying fast cars or big toys

33:12

like that. Besides falling money

33:14

could catch the attention of the feds, of

33:16

course. We all remember how the wolf of

33:18

Wall Street went down. You get

33:20

too flashy with your money, you start spending

33:22

on yachts, and all these things, it does it

33:24

does attract the attention. You start spending I

33:26

mean, if you go to the bank and

33:28

get ten thousand dollars in cash and they start

33:30

looking at your money, they're like, you need ten thousand

33:32

dollars cash? Or that job. Yeah. It's

33:35

top secret, classified. No. I think

33:37

it I think it was for, like, a

33:39

a vehicle or something, like, and

33:41

I difference or something in cash for whatever

33:43

reason just because sometimes the

33:46

the pain with checks and everything else

33:48

and they gotta run credit and that's

33:49

not. I just was like, might

33:51

I just go get some cash? But nowadays, they get

33:53

really sketchy. If you go into a bank and ask to

33:55

pull, like, twenty grand -- Yeah. -- they won't

33:57

let you

33:58

like, they don't even have that.

34:00

Most of the time advance now. Yeah.

34:03

Like, ten thousand you can do real

34:05

easy. But, yeah, they they make you,

34:07

like, sign a form and even even let the

34:09

card dealership add a sign a form that

34:11

was, like, gonna get sent just

34:13

like recording the cash transaction

34:15

and everything. So they watch that

34:17

very carefully, which with Bitcoin is a little bit

34:20

different. So he was probably,

34:22

you know, he's getting all his bitcoin and then

34:24

he's, you know, trading it

34:26

back for real money, which is crazy at the time. I think it was Bitcoin

34:28

was trading for,

34:29

like, between sixty and, like,

34:31

two hundred dollars a Bitcoin.

34:33

Damn. ShotSpotter Wild.

34:36

Like, that's crazy. So if you think he was trading

34:38

thousands of bitcoins. So, like, I

34:40

I think they were talking about

34:42

236 I read something of, like, how much

34:45

money he would actually have today, had it not

34:47

been seized, and he was still going, and he would

34:49

be, like, a multi, multi billionaire.

34:51

That's right. Well, Before the

34:54

crash, I should say. Before the crypto

34:56

crash, because bitcoin

34:58

is still doing alright. It's hopefully,

35:00

it'll make it come back, but When it

35:02

was at its peak, I mean, he would have been worth he would have

35:04

been a multi billionaire for

35:05

sure. But according to Ross,

35:08

money was not the motivation here.

35:10

He actually explained on

35:12

Silk Road. All that being

35:14

said, my primary motivation is

35:16

not personal wealth, but making a

35:18

difference. As corny as it sounds. I just wanna look back

35:21

at my life and know that I did something

35:23

worthwhile that helps people. It's paradoxical,

35:25

but the less you focus on your

35:27

own happiness and focus on others, the

35:29

happier you'll be. Try it out. You can

35:31

always go back to being selfish, smiley

35:34

face. Here's my thing though. What's

35:36

your thing? What you should

35:38

have done? And I may be completely wrong about this.

35:40

But since he had so much

35:42

money, he should've went and

35:44

spent that shit -- Totally. --

35:46

so that it could not be

35:48

seized because and he should have just

35:50

spread it around as much as he could. He should have

35:52

bought all of his family

35:54

shit, houses, shoulda he shoulda went in. But then they're gonna -- Okay. -- use an eyebrow. How are

35:56

you able to do this? Well, not

35:58

necessarily Do that without people notices. Well,

36:00

it's digital,

36:02

so it's not quite

36:04

as straight. He's not dealing with cash. Right?

36:06

He's not dealing in cash. But

36:07

if he he buys his family a house, they're

36:09

gonna be like, How are you doing? Oh, his family, you

36:11

mean? Well, yeah. I guess his family. But, like,

36:14

he should've my point is is

36:16

that he

36:18

should've spent way more money -- Yeah. -- just sitting there. Because then

36:20

there would have been less for the the

36:22

feds to seize when they did,

36:24

you know, take them

36:26

down because because he was so

36:28

frugal and he didn't really seem to care

36:30

about money all that

36:32

much, there was all this money for them

36:34

to go in. And see, I

36:36

think it was, like, twenty percent was wasn't able to be, you

36:39

know, found or

36:42

whatever. But

36:43

That's twenty percent of. So they were able to get a whole bunch

36:46

of his money and

36:47

assets. So somewhere along the way,

36:49

the original version of

36:52

Silk Road which was free

36:54

markets no harmed others

36:56

became terribly distorted. And it

36:58

started with the case of

37:00

Curtis Green. So Curtis Green was a forty seven year old man that really

37:02

seemed just like your average Joe. He

37:04

and his wife Tanya live with her two

37:06

chihuahuas in the quiet

37:08

town of Spanish fork just south Provo, Utah. the

37:10

surface, Curtis lived a normal quiet

37:12

life, but no one knew that Curtis Screen was

37:14

actually the user

37:16

chronic pain. Who

37:18

was selling oxycodone and other pills on Silk Road. Since

37:20

he dealt with chronic pain, he had a

37:23

lot of knowledge on pharmaceuticals, especially

37:26

opiates. He also had an interest

37:28

in computers and safe drug use.

37:30

Dredpirate Roberts eventually gave him approval to

37:32

create and moderate a new form on the Silk

37:34

Road. The health and wellness forum. Curtiss spent

37:36

hours counseling members on safe use practices, and DPR

37:39

was impressed with Curtiss' work.

37:42

So much so that he offered him a paid position

37:44

as Silk Road's customer service in November of twenty

37:47

twelve. Curtis quickly proved to

37:49

be a good employee. But

37:51

all that changed only a month or so later in January

37:53

of two thousand thirteen. One day Curtis

37:55

was having a normal day at home when

37:57

his doorbell rang. He opened the door

37:59

and found a book sized priority package sitting on the stoop. It was postmarked from

38:02

Maryland with no return address.

38:04

Curtis decided to take the

38:06

package inside, he plopped it on the

38:08

kitchen table and tore it open with a pair of

38:10

scissors. And for the contents of the

38:12

package, it was a

38:14

kilogram of pure Peruvian

38:16

fish scale cocaine worth twenty seven thousand

38:17

dollars. Which by the way, if you're wondering what

38:20

fish scale cocaine

38:22

is, it's super

38:24

high potent cocaine that

38:25

has, like, this kinda it's, like, shiny

38:27

or a decent kind of look to it. So,

38:29

you know, kinda, like, fish scales, you know, how they have

38:32

like that. Shiny look to

38:34

them. So I didn't know there

38:36

were, like, different types of

38:38

cocaine. I did not either. So just as

38:40

he's admiring

38:42

this kilogram of

38:44

cocaine. A SWAT team busts

38:46

down the door at the battery rim, rushes

38:48

inside and they immediately order

38:51

curves to the floor, and throw cuffs on

38:53

him. The SWAT team then raided the house where they found twenty

38:55

three thousand dollars in Curtis's fanny pack, which

38:57

he claimed was his

39:00

tax return. All the while his two

39:02

chihuahuas were barking like crazy trying to

39:04

bite at the cop's

39:06

shoes. Curtis had actually bought the

39:08

cocaine off of a silk road

39:10

vendor named Nobb. And little did he know

39:12

Nobb was actually DEA agent

39:14

Carl Force. And now Carl

39:16

was in his house standing over him like a

39:18

hunter who'd

39:20

finally caught his prey. Curtis begged the agents not to take him

39:22

to jail saying he knows everything about me,

39:24

but Carl wasn't having it.

39:27

The agents hauled him into a squad car and told him that he

39:29

was being charged with the possession of cocaine

39:31

with intent to distribute. Carl gave him

39:33

his card and told Curtis to give him a call when

39:35

he got out. When they took him

39:37

back to be interrogated, Curtis was obviously terrified. He warned them that if they made

39:40

his charges a name public, it would be a

39:42

death sentence. He

39:44

told them that dread pirate Roberts was a dangerous man worth millions who could

39:47

definitely have him killed. Curtis ended up

39:49

being released on bail,

39:52

And obviously by the time he got home, he knew what he needed to do. He

39:54

picked up the phone and called Karl. Maybe

39:56

cooperating with him would save his

40:00

And over the next few days, DPR was starting to get anxious.

40:02

Chronic pain had been offline for days.

40:04

And when he looked up Curtis's name, he

40:06

found out that he had been arrested.

40:09

So now there was a problem. DPR assumed that

40:12

Curtis would tell the authorities everything,

40:14

not only that, but another silk road

40:16

employee alerted him that three hundred and

40:18

fifty thousand dollars in Bitcoin have

40:20

been taken out of some of the

40:22

accounts, and these steps could all be traced back

40:24

to Curtis's

40:26

admin account. So now, DPR had to figure out a solution and

40:28

quickly. Curtis' arrest could put the whole

40:30

community and jeopardy, plus the

40:32

stolen bitcoins were a big issue, so

40:34

he messaged Carl, AKA

40:36

knob for help. Carl

40:38

had carefully crafted the knob persona

40:41

with an elaborate backstory Like we mentioned,

40:43

this knob character was supposed to be a cartel guy in the DR. Knob

40:45

had told DPR earlier that he had done

40:47

work in enforcement in collections during

40:49

his criminal career. So

40:51

it made sense that DPR would call on him for

40:54

help now. He explained that he needed

40:56

someone to rough up a guy in Utah that was giving

40:58

him problems. Nava asked what kind of

41:00

services DPR was looking for. And

41:02

whether or not he wanted the guy beat up or

41:04

killed, DPR sent over a

41:06

scan of

41:08

Curtis's ID he wrote, I'd like him beat up, then forced to send the

41:10

bitcoins he stole back. Not sure

41:12

how these things usually go.

41:14

Meanwhile, Karl and Curtis were sitting in the room

41:16

at the area at Salt Lake

41:18

City. Curtis 236 now a

41:20

DEA informant. He spent the

41:22

last few days with a task force

41:24

teaching them how to operate parts of the Silk

41:26

Road website. He'd also taught them

41:28

how to move and hide Bitcoin.

41:30

Members of that task force included

41:32

Carl, a secret service agent named

41:34

Sean Bridges, and other Baltimore based DEA

41:36

agents. Carl was messaging back and

41:38

forth with DPR working out

41:40

the deal. Kurtis told that

41:42

he didn't steal any bitcoins. In fact, he pointed out

41:44

that his computer was with the task force when the

41:46

bitcoins went missing. But Karl didn't

41:48

want to talk bitcoins anymore. There

41:51

was a new message from DPR. Okay. So

41:53

can you change the order to

41:55

execute rather than torture? And this

41:57

is where things really changed.

41:59

Ross had set out build a grand libertarian experiment to

42:02

show the world what freedom looked like,

42:04

but something had shifted in Ross.

42:06

Now he was willing to have people killed

42:08

for the cause. It was clear he

42:10

struggled internally with the decision, but his

42:12

mind was made up. He messaged

42:14

knob, never killed a man or had

42:16

one killed before, but it is the right move in

42:18

this case. And then

42:20

the negotiations began. When it was all

42:22

said and done, knob agreed to have Curtis

42:24

killed for eighty thousand dollars.

42:26

DPR sent forty thousand

42:28

to knob, as sort of a down payment. But for the plan to

42:30

work, they had to sell the hit. The

42:32

task force had to make it look like Curtis had been

42:34

tortured and

42:36

killed. So the task force set up a camera in the hotel bathroom and got to work.

42:38

And over the next few days, they brought

42:40

Curtis's execution to life. Agents

42:43

posed this hitman and dunked his head in a bathtub while

42:46

he thrashed and struggled to breathe. It

42:48

actually took five tries for the agents to get the

42:50

perfect video. Of the water

42:52

torture. Then it was time for the

42:54

final photo. They're gonna make it look like

42:56

Curtis died during the torture. They

42:58

actually used a can

43:00

of Campbell's chicken noodle soup to accomplish this. And the pictures

43:02

Curtis had the soup in his mouth and dripping

43:04

down his face to mimic the vomit produced

43:06

by asphyxiation.

43:08

When DPR received the pictures and had believed that the hit had taken place, he

43:10

sent the other forty thousand dollar half. He

43:12

wrote that he regretted having this

43:15

half someone taken out. But

43:17

it's what had to be done. The

43:19

implications of his actions still weighed

43:21

on him. DPR wrote to one of his top

43:23

staff that he worried power and success would

43:26

corrupt him, but he believed in his vision. With the Curtis

43:28

situation taken care of, it was time to keep

43:30

trenching forward, but a very similar

43:32

problem popped up

43:34

pretty quickly. And that's when on

43:36

March thirteenth two thousand thirteen, a user

43:38

named friendly chemist sent a message

43:40

to the Silk Road staff with 236 subject.

43:42

Very important. He said he had an

43:44

urgent issue that involved the identities of

43:46

many silk road vendors and buyers.

43:48

He needed to talk to DPR

43:50

immediately, and he wouldn't speak to anyone else about

43:52

the issue. Friendly, chemist claimed

43:54

that there were a supplier for a silk road

43:56

vendor named Lucy Drop. He

43:58

claimed that he had lent Lucy Drop

44:00

five hundred thousand dollars worth

44:02

of product. And now Lucy Drop had gone MIA.

44:04

Friendly Lemus explained that he got in the product

44:06

from suppliers who expected to be

44:08

paid back. And these suppliers

44:10

were dangerous people who were now demanding their

44:12

money. The lives of him and

44:14

his family were in danger and he needed five

44:16

hundred thousand dollars to pay these suppliers or

44:18

go on the run, If he didn't get the

44:20

money, he didn't release identities of nine top

44:22

vendors, fifteen smaller vendors, and

44:24

thousands of users. Dred pirate

44:26

Roberts was not fond of scammers and

44:28

block millers. As far as he was concerned,

44:30

this guy's situation was not his problem. But friendly chemists sent a sample

44:32

of these real identities show

44:35

he meant business. He needed the

44:37

money soon or everything would be leaked. Obviously, this posed a

44:40

huge issue

44:42

for dread pirate Roberts. kind

44:44

of leak would ruin silk road and put the

44:46

whole community in danger. He

44:48

couldn't tolerate blackmail. After a bit of

44:50

back and forth, DPR told friendly chemists have

44:53

a supplier contact him directly. And

44:56

on March twenty fifth two thousand thirteen,

44:58

DPR got a message from a user named

45:00

Red and White. Red and white

45:02

claimed to be friendly chemists' supplier

45:04

who he owed money to. He was

45:06

also a high ranking member of the motorcycle

45:08

gang Hell's angels. another

45:10

opportunity in red and white. Being a

45:12

true businessman, he was going to spin this problem into

45:14

a deal that would expand Silk Road.

45:17

DPR rope, obviously, you have access

45:19

to elicit substances and quantity are

45:21

having issues with bad distributors. If you

45:23

don't already sell here on Silk

45:25

Road, like consider becoming a vendor. So

45:28

this is where the business talks began. Red

45:30

and White explained that Hell's angels control

45:32

most of the drug market in

45:34

Western Canada, and they were looking for

45:36

ways to expand. But their partners

45:38

weren't too keen on getting on self grown now

45:40

that friendly chemist wasn't

45:42

paying up. DPR had a solution to that. He wrote in my eyes

45:44

friendly chemist as a liability, and I wouldn't

45:46

mind if he was executed, but

45:48

then you'd be out your seven

45:50

hundred k. He also sent over

45:52

some of friendly chemists' info.

45:54

His name was Blake Crokoff, a

45:56

thirty four year old man who lived in White Rock,

45:58

British Columbia with a wife and

46:00

three kids. As Red and White and

46:02

DPR message back and forth, they talked about the

46:04

logistics of dealing on Silk

46:06

Road. DPR was really trying to sell Red

46:08

and White on the idea. Red and White

46:10

also mentioned that they'd kidnapped friendly

46:12

chemists' partner and recovered their product.

46:14

He wrote that they'd tortured this partner for

46:16

information and then

46:18

killed him. So now they didn't have an issue with friendly

46:20

chemist. But friendly chemist was still

46:22

bothering DPR. He told him that

46:24

if he wasn't paid five hundred thousand in

46:26

seventy two

46:28

hours, would release all the info.

46:29

So, DPR

46:30

hit up red and white again and said,

46:32

I would like to put a bounty on

46:34

his head if it's not too much trouble

46:38

for you. Now the negotiations started. DPR

46:40

seemed to struggle with his first hit that he

46:42

took out on Curtis. But as

46:44

we'll see, taking

46:46

hits out on people start to get easier and

46:48

easier for him. He wrote, this kind of

46:50

behavior is unforgivable to me,

46:52

especially here in

46:54

Silk Road. Annonymity is sacrosanct. So, red

46:56

and white responded with his

46:58

pricing. Three hundred thousand for a

47:00

clean hit two hundred to a

47:02

hundred and fifty thousand for a non

47:04

clean hit. DVR.

47:06

Responded. Don't want to be a pain here,

47:08

but the price seems high. Not long ago, I

47:10

had a clean hit done for eighty thousand.

47:12

Are the prices you quoted the best you can

47:14

do? So, red and white

47:16

agreed on a hundred and

47:18

fifty k. DBR admitted, I've only ever

47:20

commissioned the one other hit, so I'm still

47:22

learning this market. I have no

47:24

problem putting my faith in you, and I'm sure

47:26

you will

47:28

do a good job. And with that, EPR sent over

47:30

the bitcoins. Red and Wright responded the

47:32

next day and said your problem has

47:35

been taken care

47:36

of. Rest easy though because he won't be blackmailing anyone

47:38

again ever. He sent over

47:40

a photo of

47:41

the hit and DPR responded

47:44

excellent work. But there was another issue. Red and

47:46

white explained that the hitters who

47:48

tortured and killed friendly chemist got

47:52

some information out of him. There was another user on Silk Road

47:54

who had been running scams, a

47:57

man named Andrew Lozre.

48:00

From Surrey British Columbia. Andrew had been scheming

48:02

users under the username, Tony

48:06

seventy six, Lucy

48:08

drop, and nipple suck

48:10

nuk. And every time he'd run

48:12

a scam, he'd wait a little while before setting

48:14

up a new scam account, and

48:16

making off with thousands of Bitcoin. DPR decided that

48:18

Andrew needs to be taken care of as

48:21

well. If he wasn't killed, he'd

48:23

keep running scams. Of course, red and

48:26

white was happy to help, but

48:28

for another hundred and fifty thousand. But red and

48:30

white explained that Andrew

48:32

lived with three other people, and the four of them all sold

48:34

product together. And now that

48:36

the heat was on, they were planning on

48:38

moving out of

48:40

the province. The hitter said that

48:42

they could take out the four men for a hundred and fifty thousand each. After

48:44

some careful convincing from red

48:48

and white, DPR agreed to have all four killed

48:50

for five hundred thousand and sent

48:52

over the Bitcoin. On April

48:54

fifteenth two thousand thirteen, red and white

48:56

told DPR

48:58

that the hits or done. He sent over another

49:00

photo as proof and to make up for

49:02

the Bitcoin price fluctuations

49:05

DPR sent over another

49:08

two hundred fifty thousand. So

49:10

now as far as Ross or

49:12

Red Pirate Roberts knew, he had

49:14

successfully killed six people

49:16

through Heaven. He'd even seen pictures to prove it. And this was a far

49:18

cry from the freedom and peace at

49:20

those that DVR claimed

49:22

to have. how

49:24

much this dark underworld had shifted

49:26

his morals over time. But

49:28

there's another huge twist here. None

49:31

of these murders actually happened.

49:34

That's right. He had been scammed.

49:36

Of course, the Curtis Green hit

49:38

was faked by the DEA, but it turns

49:41

out the whole friendly chemist situation was

49:43

all an elaborate scam. All

49:45

of these people, Lucy Drop, friendly

49:47

chemist, red and white, and Andrew

49:49

and his three roommates. None

49:51

of them actually existed. They were all

49:54

fictional identities run by one

49:56

scammer. And this scammer was able

49:58

to take seven thousand two hundred twenty five from

50:00

DPR. And at this time,

50:02

these were worth around a

50:06

million dollars. At today's rate,

50:08

this would be a hundred and fifty

50:10

three point five million

50:12

dollars. Dude, man. Crazy.

50:14

I know. Absolutely wild. But

50:17

DPR wouldn't find out the truth about his hits until much

50:19

later. In the meantime, he kept

50:21

working on expanding the business,

50:23

running the site, And

50:25

by this site had reached over a million

50:28

users, and the FBI was

50:30

hot on his trail. In fact, in June

50:32

of twenty thirteen, Chris Tarrbel and

50:34

his team made a crucial

50:36

discovery, the IP address of

50:38

the Silk Road server. This would

50:40

help them crack the case

50:42

wide open. They were able to track

50:44

the IP address to the Thor data

50:46

center located in Iceland

50:48

where Ross had

50:50

rented servers. Chris and two US attorneys visited the data

50:52

center that July. The Icelandic

50:54

police found a box corresponding to the

50:56

Silk Road

50:58

but they discovered that the server had a mirror or a

51:00

duplicate copy of its contents. They

51:02

were able to get into the back

51:04

end of the Silk Road now. And

51:07

they could see everything, including

51:10

DPR's communications. And obviously,

51:12

this was huge. So now they had to figure

51:14

out who exactly DPR was. And

51:16

this is where a set of crucial mistakes that

51:19

Ross made began to come together to solve

51:21

the puzzle. Earlier in June,

51:23

Ross decided that was going to

51:25

try to rent more server space for Silk Road.

51:28

And to do that, he was going to need to

51:30

rent the space using some

51:32

fake IDs. So Ross

51:34

bought nine fake IDs off Silk

51:36

Road, all with different names and fake

51:38

addresses, but each ID had

51:40

his photo on it. ID's would be sent

51:42

to his home in San Francisco where Ross

51:44

was subletting a room under the name of

51:46

Joshua Terry. And when the

51:48

fake IDs shipped, Canadian custom

51:50

selected the package for a routine

51:52

search, and that's when they found

51:54

the IDs and notified US

51:57

homeland security. Only in security decided to do

51:59

a controlled delivery on the package.

52:01

So agent showed up to Ross's

52:03

doorstep and confronted him. With

52:05

the package, but Ross kept his cool.

52:08

He knew that he didn't have to talk to the

52:10

agents and they couldn't prove that he'd

52:12

actually ordered the

52:14

IDs himself. Ross admitted to

52:16

nothing. As the agents were leaving

52:18

though, he said something weird. He

52:20

told them that, hypothetically,

52:22

anyone could visit the website

52:24

Silk Road. Where they could buy drugs and fake

52:26

IDs. So Ross got off lucky this

52:28

time, but he saw the close call

52:30

as he signed

52:32

to move. This time he rented a room in San Francisco's Glen Park

52:34

neighborhood, but he wouldn't stay

52:36

nameless for long. Now that the

52:38

FBI had the server, they could

52:40

see traffic

52:42

logs, for ports where the Silk Road admins

52:44

could log in. The IP that had last connected to the port was

52:46

traced to Cafe Luna, a coffee

52:49

shop in San Francisco. But

52:52

there were other IPs that the team tracked back to different parts of the

52:54

world. The thing is all the machines

52:56

on the servers had one

52:58

trusted computer that they could all

53:02

talk to. And the computer had the ID,

53:04

Frosty. Chris knew that this computer

53:06

was DPR. He just didn't know

53:08

what node corresponded

53:10

to Frosty. Yet. An

53:12

IRS agent working on the case named

53:14

Gary Alford actually stumbled

53:16

across a key piece of information while

53:18

he was doing some simple

53:20

Google searching. He wanted to track down

53:22

the first mentions of Silk Road on the SurfaceWeb. So he went

53:24

on advanced search mode and

53:26

filtered results for the month.

53:29

Of January two thousand eleven right around the launch

53:31

of Silk Road. And that's where he found a

53:33

post on the web forum, Shrumery,

53:36

under the

53:38

username, Altoid. Like we mentioned before, this was Ross posing

53:40

as a potential customer. He was

53:42

trying to get the word out about the site without

53:44

looking like he was

53:46

doing it or some self promotion. This post was the

53:48

first Surface Web hit or the

53:50

site's name. And through some digging,

53:52

the agent found some

53:54

other posts on a form

53:56

called Bitcoin Talk with the username

53:58

Altoid. These posts were created

54:00

around the same time that the Schrumery Post

54:02

was made. And in one of

54:04

these posts, the user wrote that they were looking to hire an IT professional for

54:06

a startup. There was an email

54:10

attached to the post

54:12

for potential candidates to apply, and it was ross albrecht

54:14

at gmail dot com. Bad

54:20

move. So sure enough, under the

54:22

outward username, more posts contained

54:24

the same email address.

54:26

That is such a big mistake

54:28

to make especially at the very beginning.

54:30

Like, it's just I I

54:33

think it also lends to what

54:36

his mindset was at the beginning. I don't think

54:38

he had any idea

54:40

that it was gonna turn

54:42

into this multi billion dollar criminal enterprise

54:44

clearly. I mean, if he had

54:46

known, you know, what what it would end up

54:48

being, I highly I bet he

54:50

would have gone about

54:52

the launch of it very differently in

54:54

much in a much more secretive way because it's

54:56

like, why would you, a, use the

54:59

same username which I I get. Most of us do that. We use

55:01

the same username for all of our -- Yeah.

55:03

-- accounts. But when you're potentially

55:05

setting an illegal marketplace.

55:07

Why would you use the same

55:10

username across multiple

55:10

forms? But then link your

55:13

email and let alone an email

55:15

that has your full name and I

55:17

know. Big, big, big, big, big, or dumb.

55:19

And there's more. Gary found another

55:21

hit for the Altoid profile from

55:23

the programming q and a

55:25

website, Stack Overflow. A post from

55:28

March sixteenth, twenty thirteen

55:30

showed the Altoid user asking a

55:32

tour related question, and the email

55:34

listed was Ross. Albrecht at

55:36

g mail dot com. A minute later, the

55:38

user changed their display name from

55:40

Altoid to

55:42

Frosty. So that's when it

55:44

kinda all came together. When the FBI

55:46

looked into this Ross guy,

55:48

they found social media profiles like

55:51

his LinkedIn. And the information in those

55:54

profiles matched a lot of what they

55:56

knew about DPR. They

55:58

saw Ross' love

56:00

for libertarianism. And Ludwig

56:02

von Mises, and a work history

56:04

that aligned with what DPR

56:06

was doing. Plus, the investigators

56:08

found homeland security's file on

56:10

Ross' fake ID order. His last

56:12

known address was a half a block from

56:15

Cafe Luna, one of the

56:17

admin nodes that Chris's team

56:19

pulled from the server. They realized that this

56:21

was their guy. All they had to do

56:23

was arrest him, but that wouldn't

56:25

be so easy. I

56:27

just can't believe that as

56:30

things got bigger and bigger that he didn't

56:32

take the time to protect

56:34

himself better. Like, why

56:36

wouldn't you go and try to erase all

56:38

traces of yourself off the Internet? Like, your

56:40

real name and stuff. Like, your

56:42

-- Yeah. You're a drug kingpin now. Yeah.

56:44

Why would you want your

56:46

LinkedIn? Which is still out there. I just

56:48

looked it up.

56:50

It's public too. Yeah. Why would you want any sort

56:52

of private personal

56:54

information that would reveal your identity

56:56

out there, let alone using

57:00

Well, I'm sure he didn't want that, but I think

57:02

he just got Well, clearly, he just

57:04

got too busy and clearly forgot about it.

57:06

And distracted by all these little dramas

57:08

going on and the idea of

57:10

ordering kills on

57:11

people, just how big it was all getting. I

57:13

think he was not even

57:15

thinking about that. Yeah.

57:16

Well, clearly, he wasn't thinking. And he I'm sure he was sleep

57:17

deprived as well. I mean, he was working on this thing. They said,

57:20

like, twenty four seven. So I just

57:22

don't get Just

57:24

such

57:24

-- No mistake. -- such a crucial mistake.

57:26

Because ultimately that ultimately,

57:28

his downfall is a direct

57:30

result of Gary, the IRS agent,

57:33

Yeah. I'm figuring out ross

57:35

old brick at g mail dot

57:36

com. I know. Like, if he had it at least put

57:38

ross old brick at g mail dot com,

57:40

it would have been a little bit harder to try to figure out who Altuit is.

57:43

And then, obviously, they eventually you know, when he changed the defrosty,

57:45

that that connected with -- Yeah. -- you know, what

57:47

the pricing on the server, but

57:50

It's just like he he got so caught up and

57:52

and everything else that he forgot to,

57:54

like, look out for himself. That

57:57

to me is is crazy. I'm like, trying to think if I were in

58:00

this

58:00

situation, how I would have handled it differently.

58:02

But then again, I've never been in this situation.

58:04

So maybe because So

58:06

maybe the stress not just the pressure -- Yeah. -- the pressure

58:10

is having just you it overwhelms

58:12

you and you can't things straight and you

58:14

can't keep track. I mean, you're just trying to keep track

58:16

of this massive website with a million users

58:18

that the the last thing you're thinking about is

58:20

like, oh, what have I posted out there

58:22

before? Right. So he he

58:24

yeah. He probably just forgot all about

58:26

all of but what a crucial mistake.

58:28

I mean, if you're gonna go into this type of

58:30

endeavor, I feel like first step is make sure

58:32

nothing can be traced back to really who you

58:35

what your real identity. Yes. It's a

58:37

good thing. Criminals slip

58:40

up. Right? That's how we

58:42

catch them usually. When it comes to farting,

58:44

there's two types of people.

58:48

There's a person that just doesn't give

58:50

a crap and literally will

58:52

fart wherever and around whoever

58:54

they want and they own it.

58:57

But then people like myself

59:00

who don't wanna be so

59:04

outwardly public

59:06

with it. And so my method is

59:08

generally to go outside with the

59:10

dogs or I'll go into

59:12

the bathroom And

59:14

now my new excuse is my baby. I

59:16

don't believe that. I was gonna say

59:18

you really don't believe that. But our

59:20

baby farts a lot. So and

59:23

kinda like sneak one out and then if it

59:25

kinda smells like, oh, yeah, as

59:27

the baby. So reason for

59:29

bringing up farting ritual has created a daily three in

59:31

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59:34

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59:36

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59:38

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59:42

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59:44

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59:46

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59:48

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59:50

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59:52

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59:54

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59:56

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59:58

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1:00:22

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to your subscription today. Since

1:00:46

the FBI had a mere copy of the server, they're able to see what time

1:00:49

DPR went offline and online. Through surveillance,

1:00:51

they were able to match up his

1:00:53

online behavior with his offline

1:00:56

behavior as evidence, and now this

1:00:58

would help them finally put him under

1:01:00

arrest. On October first two

1:01:02

thousand thirteen, agent Tarbel and other

1:01:04

FBI agents as well as an armed

1:01:06

SWAT team had been camped out in Ross'

1:01:08

neighborhood. It was the day they'd been

1:01:10

waiting for for years. The day

1:01:12

that Jed pirate Roberts and silk road would

1:01:14

finally go down. But the police

1:01:16

had to get Ross with his

1:01:18

computer open because they knew them. Second,

1:01:20

he closed that laptop all the immediately

1:01:22

become encrypted. All Ross had

1:01:24

to do was hit control, delete, block

1:01:26

his computer, and then be screwed. So

1:01:28

Tarvel and his agents created a plan.

1:01:31

It'd be risky and definitely wasn't a part of

1:01:34

normal FBI protocol, but it might just

1:01:36

work. It was time for a little

1:01:38

acting work. A homeland

1:01:40

security agent had actually busted a low level

1:01:42

silk road admin named

1:01:44

Cerus earlier that year. She

1:01:46

became an informant and the agent took

1:01:48

over the account for pretending to be

1:01:50

her. So by this point, Seres had

1:01:52

risen up the ranks and DPR trusted

1:01:54

her. This account would be crucial in

1:01:56

busting DPR. At two forty five

1:01:58

PM, the homeland security agent noticed that

1:02:00

DPR had logged off, so he was about

1:02:02

to be on the move. Finally, a few minutes

1:02:04

later, the door to Ross's apartment flew

1:02:06

open, and Ross casually walked out with a book bag over his shoulder and headed for a

1:02:08

cafe. But the cafe was too busy and

1:02:10

Ross had nowhere to sit so he left.

1:02:12

Then he made his way to the Glen Park branch

1:02:14

of the San Francisco

1:02:16

public library. Austin sat

1:02:18

at a table and started working on his

1:02:20

laptop. Meanwhile, an undercover female

1:02:22

agent sat at the same table

1:02:24

pretending to be working. Agents had catch

1:02:26

Ross while he was on the admin page for

1:02:28

the site, so they used Cyrus

1:02:30

to lure him onto the mastermind page.

1:02:33

Cirrus messaged Ross, pretending that there is some sort of feedback

1:02:36

issue that needed to be looked at. So Ross,

1:02:38

who had no idea Cyrus was really a spy,

1:02:40

opened up the page. agents

1:02:42

moved in. Two agents posed as

1:02:44

a homeless couple had walked behind Ross.

1:02:47

Suddenly they began to have a loud

1:02:49

argument and shouted at each other the

1:02:51

female agent actually punched the male agent in the face, and the commotion was enough

1:02:53

to get Roth to turn around, which

1:02:55

was a fateful mistake. Just

1:02:58

as he turned his back, the agent sitting at the desk grabbed his

1:03:00

laptop, and Ross immediately whipped background and

1:03:02

lunged for it, but it was too

1:03:06

late. In a split second, the agent snapped the laptop to her side,

1:03:08

and another agent grabbed it.

1:03:10

Then agent slapped handcuffs on him,

1:03:13

and Ross was shocked, but he said

1:03:15

nothing. The police hauled him out of the librarian into

1:03:17

a squad car. Meanwhile, agents

1:03:20

continually press spaceborne Ross'

1:03:22

laptop to keep it alive. If

1:03:24

went to sleep, there was a chance it would encrypt

1:03:26

itself and the agency would

1:03:28

be screwed. They also took photos of the laptop that showed what pages Ross

1:03:30

had to open. And sure enough, they'd caught

1:03:32

him red handed, logged

1:03:34

into the

1:03:36

mastermind page The machine ID

1:03:38

showed the name, Frosty.

1:03:40

Silk Road was seized by the US government

1:03:42

and shut down the next day. Investigators redirected

1:03:44

the site's visitors to a warning that the

1:03:46

silk Road had been seized. Users immediately flocked to Reddit to try

1:03:48

and figure out what was going on. Some people

1:03:50

thought it was a joke at first, but

1:03:54

panic ensued. Everyone was worried that

1:03:56

the police would come after them. The

1:03:58

authorities ended up seizing one hundred and forty

1:04:00

four thousand bitcoins from Ross in

1:04:02

October of two

1:04:04

thousand thirteen, And at the time, this was worth twenty eight point

1:04:06

five million dollars. This would

1:04:08

have made Ross a multi millionaire at the

1:04:10

age

1:04:11

of twenty nine, and all of these bitcoins were later auctioned off

1:04:13

by the government. It blows my mind. He was so young

1:04:15

doing all this. Yeah. I I keep

1:04:18

thinking I don't know why he kept

1:04:20

picturing him at least in his

1:04:22

thirties. But our age

1:04:24

creating all of this, this

1:04:27

huge marketplace for drugs and

1:04:29

doing all these things, then it's just

1:04:31

It's crazy. I mean, most of the

1:04:33

biggest tech giants in the world are

1:04:35

created by young lines. You know, you

1:04:37

look at Marcus Zuckerberg when he created

1:04:39

Facebook and True. Creators of eBay and Good

1:04:41

point. You know Elon Musk. I mean, a lot of them are

1:04:43

fairly young. Yeah. It's it's a it's a lot

1:04:46

to manage them. I

1:04:47

mean, the amount of responsibility

1:04:50

he had and -- Mhmm. -- just sheer

1:04:52

oversight he had to give to this website

1:04:54

as insane. But it was

1:04:56

far from over The authorities that Silk Road

1:04:59

had six hundred thousand bitcoins scrolled

1:05:01

away in total worth around eighty million

1:05:03

dollars at the time. This

1:05:05

was over five percent of the total bitcoins

1:05:07

in circulation. And again, this is in

1:05:09

two thousand thirteen. At Bitcoin's peak

1:05:12

in November twenty twenty one, the six

1:05:14

hundred thousand coins would have been worth

1:05:16

thirty nine billion dollars. Can you believe that? All

1:05:18

these bitcoins were thought to be the total profits

1:05:20

from the Silk Road. But

1:05:23

the coins wouldn't all be in one bitcoin

1:05:25

wallet. They'd be in a number of different wallets

1:05:27

all encrypted with their own private keys, which

1:05:30

are incredibly difficult

1:05:32

to crack. Ross wasn't the only one arrested either. Many members of

1:05:34

236 staff were arrested as well as vendors who sold

1:05:36

products on the site. About a month

1:05:38

after Silk Road was ceased a

1:05:41

new version of the site popped up called Silk Road two point o. The

1:05:43

site was run by former Silk Road

1:05:45

admins. A year later, the site was seized

1:05:47

and shut down and the owner

1:05:49

was arrested in sentence to five years

1:05:51

in prison, which is an interesting note to keep in

1:05:54

mind as we get into

1:05:56

Ross' trial.

1:05:58

The owner of the new Silk Road two point zero which wasn't around for very long

1:06:00

at all was sentenced only five years in prison.

1:06:02

Since then, more Silk Road

1:06:06

cop cats sides have emerged, but none of them have really ended

1:06:08

successfully. Ross pleaded not guilty to the

1:06:10

charges against him, and his trial lasted about

1:06:12

two weeks.

1:06:14

The prosecution dropped the attempted murder charges but kept them

1:06:16

in court proceedings as an overact

1:06:18

or an uncharged crime. They read

1:06:20

out the mess ages Ross wrote in court, arguing that

1:06:23

he was ruthless and believed he was

1:06:25

really killing people. But even if the murder for

1:06:27

higher plots didn't end in death, they put Ross on

1:06:29

the hook for other casual he's

1:06:31

of the Silk Road. The prosecution argued

1:06:33

that six people died as a result of

1:06:35

drugs purchased from the Silk Road. Two

1:06:38

sixteen year olds who died after taking

1:06:40

fake LSD three overdoses and one death from medical conditions

1:06:42

aggravated by drugs bought off the silk

1:06:44

road. Ross argued that he

1:06:46

was framed, He

1:06:48

said there were multiple DPRs running the site like the name suggested.

1:06:50

He sold the site early on

1:06:52

in its history, and then just before he was

1:06:54

arrested, the old DPR convinced him to

1:06:57

buy back a site that left all the hitman

1:06:59

evidence in Ross' lap making him the

1:07:01

fall

1:07:01

guy. Do you think it

1:07:03

was just him at the end of the

1:07:05

day? No. I don't.

1:07:07

I don't I I would like to

1:07:09

see what evidence there is for it

1:07:12

because, like, that it

1:07:14

is only him because there is a

1:07:16

possibility that there were

1:07:18

multiple people. And and I

1:07:20

believe he claims that there was, like, three other

1:07:22

people that operated DPR, the

1:07:24

DPR account. Maybe

1:07:24

that maybe I mean, I don't

1:07:26

know. But that's the thing is, like,

1:07:28

I'd have to, like, I'd have to, like,

1:07:30

see the logs and stuff and see where, you

1:07:32

know, where these accounts are being logged

1:07:35

in from. But I just I

1:07:37

have a hard time imagining because

1:07:39

if you think about the sheer amount

1:07:41

of work that Ross would have had

1:07:43

to put

1:07:44

into, I mean, he still lived his life. Right. Right. It's not, like, as

1:07:46

far as we know, he wasn't, like, hold up inside

1:07:48

of a house twenty 470,

1:07:51

that's Got his

1:07:52

computer. And

1:07:54

never saw us. Never saw his yeah. He was But his girlfriend was explaining

1:07:56

how she was pissed that he's, like, always on a computer,

1:07:58

but -- Yeah. -- but he's still, like,

1:08:02

saw his family. He still did things. He traveled. So it

1:08:04

wasn't wasn't like he was the he

1:08:06

was the only admin. Like, there was

1:08:09

other admins and there had to

1:08:11

been other people that that control the DPR account. There just

1:08:14

had to be. That'd just be so much responsibility for one. And

1:08:16

why would he

1:08:18

put that on

1:08:20

himself? That's true. Maybe that's I

1:08:22

mean, that is why he chose the name. So And he had to have known that, like,

1:08:24

that would be a great defense

1:08:26

mechanism for him. Like, I think

1:08:30

people don't give Ross enough credit. I think there is

1:08:32

some dumb mistakes, but at the same time, I

1:08:34

think he did make some smart moves.

1:08:38

And I think the DPR username in the account was one of and

1:08:40

he that there were

1:08:42

perhaps other people that that

1:08:44

ran that account, including those

1:08:47

that, you know, maybe ordered

1:08:49

those hits, you know? Yeah. At trial, one of Ross's friends Richard Bates actually testified that he'd

1:08:52

helped Ross program the site back

1:08:54

in two thousand ten and two thousand

1:08:56

eleven. He

1:08:59

knew about the true purpose of the site, Ross swore him the secrecy, but

1:09:01

there had been a hiccup in November of

1:09:03

two thousand eleven. According to Richard Ross'

1:09:05

girlfriend, Julia, told one of her

1:09:07

friends about the website, And 192

1:09:09

thousand eleven, that friend made a post on Ross' Facebook wall saying, I'm sure the authorities would be

1:09:12

interested in your

1:09:15

drug running site. Ross was able to get that post

1:09:17

deleted very quickly after it had been posted, but Richard warned Ross that the site was not

1:09:20

worth going

1:09:22

to jail over. Ross told Richard that he couldn't shut down the side since he

1:09:24

had sold it to someone else. So

1:09:27

that's another interesting thing. But

1:09:30

the strategy didn't work. The jury deliberated for four hours before

1:09:32

returning guilty verdicts. The judge

1:09:34

really threw the whole book

1:09:36

and then some at Ross in terms

1:09:39

of sentencing. The judge gave him two life sentences plus forty

1:09:41

years. Many people thought that the

1:09:43

sentence was unfairly

1:09:47

excessive. Ross's sentence was actually more than what El Chapo

1:09:49

received, but the court admitted that the

1:09:51

long sentence was intentional. Just

1:09:54

for reference, El Chapo was sentenced to life in

1:09:57

prison plus thirty years. They said that Ross

1:09:59

was the first defendant of this kind and

1:10:01

they wanted to send a clear message

1:10:03

to anyone who wanted fall in his footsteps, basically

1:10:05

just making an example out of him. Plus, the government was

1:10:07

pissed that Ross was able to do

1:10:09

what he did for as long

1:10:11

as he did. They said he

1:10:14

made the blueprint for using the

1:10:16

Internet to facilitate criminal transactions.

1:10:18

Using that blueprint, other people have gone to

1:10:20

make more online drug markets and the government is

1:10:22

still struggling to stop them. As drug pirate Roberts, Ross was always saying that

1:10:24

each transaction on the Silk Road

1:10:26

was sticking it to the government.

1:10:29

And he was right. He just might not have

1:10:31

truly realized just how angry this would make them. So some people believe that government would have done anything to stop

1:10:34

DPR even if it was shady or

1:10:36

illegal. And

1:10:39

as we'll see, some of these feds involved in the

1:10:41

Silk Road takedown operation were actually

1:10:43

highly corrupt. So we talked a

1:10:45

lot about Agent Carl Force, the

1:10:47

DEA guy who faked Curtis's murder and

1:10:49

talked to DPRs knob. Well, it turns

1:10:52

out Carl was actually a crooked

1:10:54

cop. He and Sean Bridges, the secret service agent

1:10:56

on the DEA task force stole hundreds of

1:10:58

thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoin from

1:11:00

Silk Road and other Bitcoin exchanges. These thefts

1:11:03

all took place during their silk road investigation. Back

1:11:05

when they were using Curtis Green

1:11:07

as their informant, they learned from

1:11:09

him how to move and hide bitcoins.

1:11:11

Sean used that knowledge in Curtis's Silk Road admin account to steal

1:11:13

those thousands of bitcoins. He and Carl

1:11:15

tried to blame the

1:11:17

theft on Curtis. Which DPR also thought that

1:11:20

Curtis stole the

1:11:20

coins, which pushed him towards ordering the hit.

1:11:22

But the whole time, it was

1:11:25

really Sean and Karl. Carl also made off with

1:11:27

fifty thousand dollars while he was posing as knob. One

1:11:29

day he had told DPR that he had a

1:11:32

guy on the inside

1:11:34

named Kevin And Kevin was supposedly a DEA

1:11:36

guy who Knob paid for intel on

1:11:38

upcoming bus and things like that. So

1:11:40

Knob actually offered to have Kevin give

1:11:42

intel to DPR. Of course, DPR would have to pay a fee for this, but there was

1:11:45

no Kevin. Carl was just the one

1:11:47

giving DPR the intel. Most of

1:11:49

it was phony, but some

1:11:51

of it was actually classified DEA info. So

1:11:53

this was a bad leak for the agency. It doesn't end there.

1:11:55

The agents actually laundered about a

1:11:57

half a million of those

1:11:59

profits through Panama. And

1:12:01

at one point, Carl tried to monitor the

1:12:03

money through Venmo and Bitstamp. The two services actually froze his

1:12:06

accounts, and Carl tried to intimidate them into unfreezing the

1:12:08

accounts, by

1:12:10

serving them invalid subpoenas. He even

1:12:12

created more profiles on silk road and

1:12:14

used in the blackmail DPR with

1:12:17

government intel, And through those schemes, he made

1:12:19

at least one hundred thousand dollars. According to prosecutors, there's a good chance other agents

1:12:21

were involved with

1:12:24

the scheme that they don't

1:12:26

know about. So this corruption probably goes a lot deeper than we think. Sean and Karl were charged for their crimes in

1:12:28

March of two thousand fifteen and later that

1:12:30

year Karl was sentenced to six and a

1:12:32

half years

1:12:35

in prison, and Sean was sentenced to five

1:12:37

years in eleven months. But

1:12:39

wait, there's more. In February

1:12:41

of two thousand sixteen, Sean

1:12:43

Bridges was arrested again This time he

1:12:45

had been caught trying to flee the country instead of

1:12:47

serving a sentence. In twenty twenty, the authority seized almost seventy

1:12:51

thousand in bitcoins. Stolen from the silk

1:12:53

road. At the time of the seizure, the coins were worth over one

1:12:55

billion dollars. The thief was

1:12:58

a hacker that the just department

1:13:00

only identified as individual x, and it turns out

1:13:02

there's strong evidence that this individual x is actually

1:13:07

Sean Bridges. How crazy is that? It's

1:13:10

so wild. So Ross's family and his legion of supporters have created

1:13:14

the free Ross movement, and their goal is to have Ross' conviction

1:13:16

and sentence overturned. Curtis Green

1:13:19

has also become a

1:13:21

huge supporter of the

1:13:23

free Ross movement. And for his part in

1:13:26

the Silk Road and his cooperation with the DEA, he only served two days in jail

1:13:28

after the news broke

1:13:31

about Karl and Sean he

1:13:33

understandably is pretty upset with the government. But Curtis believes that there were multiple DPRs and

1:13:36

that Ross didn't put

1:13:38

out a hit on

1:13:40

him.

1:13:41

So here's Curtis and Lynn talking about his support for Ross at a Bitcoin

1:13:43

conference. One of

1:13:46

the funniest things is

1:13:48

when

1:13:51

when I was supportive of my attorneys, they said,

1:13:53

at least he's why

1:13:55

were you supportive of a guy that

1:13:57

tried to kill you? And and I

1:14:00

I immediately snapped back, and I said,

1:14:02

how do you know that he tried to have me kill? You you're just going by what

1:14:04

the government tells you. You're but

1:14:06

I still don't and I said,

1:14:10

I don't I

1:14:12

I don't I don't believe it. I

1:14:14

I even given so many different versions

1:14:18

that I can't believe

1:14:20

anything that the government

1:14:23

tells me. So all

1:14:25

of something I know. So the question is

1:14:27

that I asked you that before is when Ross gets

1:14:29

out, will you

1:14:30

be afraid for your life or at all?

1:14:33

Absolutely not. I would I hope one day

1:14:35

we can get together and, you

1:14:37

know what, I bet you will

1:14:40

become friends. And

1:14:44

and it was ironic. The

1:14:46

people who I am afraid

1:14:48

of are the government

1:14:50

agents that are still in

1:14:52

prison. Carl Force gets out

1:14:54

next October, and trust me, I have that date written on my

1:14:58

thing. Ross is team filed an appeal to his life sentence overturned. They

1:15:00

argued that not only was the sentence

1:15:03

excessive, but the investigation was

1:15:06

tainted by the corrupt DEA agents who stole money from site for their

1:15:08

own personal gain. But the judge wasn't

1:15:10

swayed by any of this. In

1:15:14

two thousand seventeen, Ross lost his appeal sentence was upheld.

1:15:17

There's been a lot of controversy,

1:15:19

as you can imagine, on

1:15:22

how the silk rode. Server

1:15:24

was found by the FBI. They claimed that they'd

1:15:26

found the IP address by exploiting a flaw in the website's code.

1:15:31

Again, Ross programmed the website himself. So there

1:15:33

had been multiple instances where hackers

1:15:35

took advantage of these

1:15:37

flaws to extort money

1:15:40

from DPR. But free Ross

1:15:42

has argued that the server was potentially discovered using the work of the NSA, meaning

1:15:44

Ross' fourth amendment

1:15:47

right was violated. Which

1:15:51

protects people from unreasonable searches and

1:15:53

seizures by the government. The government

1:15:55

has obviously denied this,

1:15:57

but Edward Snowden believes that the NSA had

1:15:59

a huge part in discovering the

1:16:00

server. Here's what Edward snowed in

1:16:03

had to say about the whole

1:16:05

thing. In the case of Ross

1:16:07

who was pross kitted for founding the

1:16:09

Silk Road website and is now effectively -- he's appealing it, but a

1:16:12

life sentence 236 you

1:16:15

assume or should we assume that the NSA

1:16:17

was involved in corroborating or

1:16:20

gathering

1:16:20

evidence, which they might have

1:16:22

denied in the actual trial? Yes.

1:16:25

Yep. Okay. That's right. That's that

1:16:27

was easy enough.

1:16:28

But it seems

1:16:31

unthinkable to me. That

1:16:35

there was not an intelligence angle internationally that was involved

1:16:37

in that. I I agree with them.

1:16:39

Yeah. I just I just don't see

1:16:41

how the FBI It's pretty

1:16:43

obvious. Was able to to

1:16:45

get into these servers without serious help

1:16:47

from the hacking group of the United States government, the

1:16:50

NSA. Yeah. I mean,

1:16:53

if anybody knows, Snowden, he he knows I don't know. I feel like if there's anybody

1:16:55

to know about I

1:16:58

mean, he hacked into lots

1:17:02

of different things. And he's seen a

1:17:04

lot of different things. So Yeah. He's very

1:17:06

confident about that. Mhmm. So a huge number

1:17:09

of influential figures, including

1:17:11

politicians, celebrities, activists, CEOs and other dignitaries have

1:17:13

called for Ross's relief from prison. People actually thought that Trump

1:17:16

would pardon him on

1:17:18

his last hand office, but

1:17:20

that never happened. So before we went over the friendly chemist

1:17:23

murder for higher situation, we told you that the whole

1:17:25

thing was a

1:17:28

big scam. Well, in two

1:17:30

thousand eighteen, we found out that this was allegedly the work of a man named James Ellingson.

1:17:32

James was a former vendor

1:17:34

on Silk Road who ran scams

1:17:38

not only as Lucy drop, but

1:17:40

also Tony seventy six. And after

1:17:42

getting all that money from the murder

1:17:45

for higher hoax, he'd been sitting on

1:17:47

thousands of bitcoins for years, but the

1:17:49

feds caught him while he was trying

1:17:51

to cash out on the coins. The

1:17:54

seizures and prosecutions from the silk road have continued to this day. Just recently, in

1:17:56

twenty twenty one, the justice department

1:17:58

announced that they'd seized over fifty

1:18:00

thousand hundred

1:18:03

and seventy six bitcoins from a man named James

1:18:05

Zong. James actually stole all

1:18:08

that bitcoin back in twenty

1:18:10

twelve from the Silk Road and

1:18:12

kept them hidden on

1:18:14

multiple devices. At the time of his arrest, Bitcoin was at its all time highest

1:18:20

price. So those bitcoins were worth

1:18:22

over three point three six billion dollars. When the feds were trying

1:18:24

to track down where

1:18:26

all the market's money went,

1:18:29

all that Bitcoin was missing, leading to a mystery

1:18:31

that has lasted twenty years now. Here's how James

1:18:36

got caught. In two thousand nineteen,

1:18:38

James called the police and reported that his house was burglarized. He said that the thief had

1:18:41

stolen a lot

1:18:44

of bitcoin. And the IRS's

1:18:46

criminal investigation unit was very curious about his missing Bitcoin. Ross has

1:18:48

been incarcerated for

1:18:51

ten years so far. He's

1:18:54

now selling NFTs from prison

1:18:56

and calling into Bitcoin conferences. His

1:18:59

family hopes that one day

1:19:01

he will be released. The Silk

1:19:03

Road forever changed the online drug

1:19:05

world. And really, it changed the

1:19:07

offline drug world as well. Plenty

1:19:09

of the dark net markets have

1:19:11

popped up since the Silk Road was created and

1:19:14

seized. They come and go frequently, but it seems like online drug markets in general

1:19:16

are here to stay. Right.

1:19:18

That's the thing. It's like ceasing

1:19:21

and taking down the silk road

1:19:23

just more pop Yeah. so does it

1:19:28

really solve the issue. Now that's their whole thing

1:19:30

is, oh, we gotta make an example out of him and give him this So no one will have to do it again. Tiring

1:19:32

sentence of life

1:19:35

in prison when it doesn't

1:19:37

solve the problem. It's not gonna discourage people not doing

1:19:39

this piss them

1:19:43

off even more And even more,

1:19:46

marketplaces are gonna come up. So it's like it it's just it's a total sham. I think ultimately, it's just

1:19:48

that the government's

1:19:51

showing force of, like, you

1:19:54

know, you try to mess with us, you try to

1:19:56

break our laws, and we're gonna screw you.

1:19:58

And that's that's what happened here clearly.

1:20:01

I mean, when you look at it as a whole, would you

1:20:04

consider Ross a hero in in

1:20:06

some ways, like in in sort

1:20:08

of bringing awareness

1:20:10

to you know, the the war on drugs. And,

1:20:12

I mean, there is a whole

1:20:14

documentary that was made by filmmaker

1:20:17

named Alex Winter called

1:20:19

Deep Webb. And in it, they're talking with

1:20:21

somebody in the Baltimore police, I think, and they're talking about how these transactions

1:20:24

and we kind of talked

1:20:26

about this a little bit earlier

1:20:28

were are much safer than what goes on

1:20:31

on the streets -- Yeah. -- every day. And, you know, there's murders and robberies and all

1:20:33

sorts of violence that

1:20:35

happens on the streets in

1:20:37

the drug trade, but this

1:20:40

allowed, you know, allowed people to circumvent

1:20:42

that and have relatively safe transactions all

1:20:44

online. And,

1:20:46

you know, it's and it obviously lends

1:20:49

to the bigger issue of the war on

1:20:51

drugs and how that's all a

1:20:53

all a sham and just

1:20:55

a moneymaker for you know, the corporations and

1:20:57

stuff that run private prison systems and, you know, the government and everything.

1:21:00

So it's

1:21:03

kind of like I think he brought a lot of

1:21:05

awareness to that issue of the warrant drugs. So if you ask me, what do you think? No. I

1:21:08

completely agree. I

1:21:11

think that especially initially his

1:21:13

quest, as you could

1:21:16

say, was had

1:21:18

good intentions. And he truly

1:21:21

did believe in libertarianism and less

1:21:23

government and wanted to do

1:21:25

something about it. And I think

1:21:27

it got pretty out of hand, but it's hard

1:21:29

to say exactly if he was a hero or

1:21:32

not because we

1:21:34

don't know who ordered those hits. And so,

1:21:36

like, how much of it can

1:21:38

we actually blame on Ross. But

1:21:43

Overall, I think his sentence is way too harsh, and I

1:21:45

think he should not be in prison

1:21:47

anymore. Well, it's like he's

1:21:49

he's a first time offender non violent

1:21:51

offense. Mhmm. You know, because the He

1:21:54

wasn't he wasn't on trial for the

1:21:57

murder for higher charges. Because that ended up

1:21:59

being a scamman. And I come back to

1:22:01

the government agents that are

1:22:03

also corrupt in the part of this deal

1:22:05

that were a part of the investigation a

1:22:07

part of gathering evidence. And the fact

1:22:10

that we still haven't seen evidence

1:22:12

for how the FBI actually obtained

1:22:14

the this the IP address.

1:22:16

And, I mean, I think there's I think

1:22:18

there's a lot of things that are under

1:22:20

wraps that they've

1:22:22

been trying to bring forward of how this all went

1:22:24

down. And even the way that he

1:22:26

was arrested was not protocol for things.

1:22:28

And it's just the result the

1:22:31

government really had to, like, you

1:22:33

know, cross some lines to to make this all all go down. So in the end, is

1:22:35

that is that violating his constitutional rights?

1:22:40

And it sure seems like it. And that's

1:22:42

what the whole free Ross move ins about is, like, he was and there's tons of celebrities and and

1:22:47

to lawyers, to politicians. I mean, there's

1:22:49

all sorts of very notable

1:22:51

people that agree

1:22:53

with this, that his rights were violated,

1:22:55

and he did not get a fair trial.

1:22:57

I mean, I'm I was just reading

1:23:00

about his his trial

1:23:02

in the judge basically throughout all of the defenses. They weren't allowed to call forward expert

1:23:04

witnesses because my

1:23:07

thing is, like, how much

1:23:09

did this judge actually understand what Ross was doing? Yeah. Probably not at all. Like, this is complicated

1:23:12

stuff. So in

1:23:14

order to actually help the

1:23:17

judge understand what's going on. You gotta call forward expert witnesses to help

1:23:19

break down. What is Bitcoin? Does the judge even know what a

1:23:21

Bitcoin was? You know? And so

1:23:24

it's like,

1:23:26

especially Martin? My guess is that this

1:23:28

was just like a complete steam

1:23:30

role by the government. And they

1:23:33

want they were

1:23:34

like, you know, drugs bad. This guy's

1:23:36

big drug dealer. He's like, El Chapo, let's

1:23:38

let's, you know Which is so

1:23:42

not even true. El Chapo was in my opinion, way worse. Oh, dude. He killed, like, three

1:23:47

thousand people. Yeah. 236

1:23:50

he's responsible for, like, a minimum that says of seventy thousand people losing their life.

1:23:52

Yeah. And the fact

1:23:55

that he

1:23:55

got charged much

1:23:58

harder than El Chapo. Yeah. That's

1:24:00

absurd. Blows my fucking mind. It's absolutely

1:24:03

ridiculous. It makes

1:24:03

no sense because And I

1:24:06

and I don't know from other cases and stories I've covered that people who do far more heinous acts

1:24:12

like rape -- Yeah. --

1:24:14

to, you know, child creation. I mean, there's sexual exploitation

1:24:16

human trafficking. There's

1:24:19

people that do horrific things to other

1:24:21

humans even kill people that get less time than Ross's. So the fact

1:24:23

that Ross has no

1:24:27

chance of parole he's got multiple life

1:24:30

sentences on him. Like, he is never gonna get out of prison unless some whether

1:24:32

he's either commuted by

1:24:34

a president or No.

1:24:38

Somehow an appeal goes through

1:24:40

and he's already had two and they've been denied, but there's

1:24:42

only so many times you can go through the appeals

1:24:44

process. So And my guess is the government's not

1:24:46

gonna there's no way the government's gonna let him out. And the government's the justice system's not gonna let president go

1:24:49

in and commute his

1:24:51

sentence. That's for sure. Because

1:24:54

he's he is an example. It's it's a show

1:24:56

of force by the government saying, you mess with

1:24:58

us, you try to mess

1:24:59

with, you know, you try to outsmart us

1:25:02

and work to everyone else the

1:25:04

lesson. Yeah. We're

1:25:05

gonna put you in the ground. And it doesn't and it's

1:25:07

just, like, for what? Because he created a website, like, 236

1:25:11

he actually sell, you know, other than the shrooms that he sold

1:25:14

at the very beginning -- Mhmm. --

1:25:16

what

1:25:18

other crimes did he did he do other than being an admin on this

1:25:20

one? No. That's the thing. The lack

1:25:22

of evidence here. Where's the evidence?

1:25:25

Where's the evidence that how to prove to us

1:25:27

that he wasn't the only one operating -- Yeah. -- the dread

1:25:29

pirate Robertson. And they can't. And he

1:25:32

even said he's he said

1:25:34

multiple times that he sold the

1:25:36

site So for all we know, maybe he

1:25:38

actually did sell the site and he was getting royalties from all the all the transactions on it, but

1:25:40

he wasn't even involved. He wasn't

1:25:42

even the one controlling the account.

1:25:45

Yeah. And therefore someone else was and

1:25:47

he was the fall guy for it because it's easy it's easy for anonymous guy

1:25:52

to be like, oh, well, Ross' identity

1:25:54

236 out there. He was the one who created it. So -- Yeah. -- let's let him take the fall for it. And

1:25:56

and I think it it lends

1:25:59

a bigger issue to, like, remaining

1:26:02

anonymous is great is great and

1:26:04

all, but, like, it also creates

1:26:06

all sorts of issues because it's

1:26:09

so easy for scams to take place

1:26:11

and people to pretend who they are. And I think that was something that maybe he

1:26:15

overlooked was like, how do I know I'm

1:26:17

actually talking to the people that I'm talking

1:26:19

to? Yeah. If I'm just dealing with usernames. Right? And you're going off of

1:26:21

this total trust system

1:26:23

where you're just trusting that that

1:26:25

person is like, you as a saying, you know, I just I would love to

1:26:27

talk to Ross like, hear his side of

1:26:30

things now and hindsight of, like,

1:26:32

what what

1:26:35

he thinks of it? What what would he've done

1:26:37

differently? What does he, you know, think

1:26:39

of uncharacterized that? Because

1:26:42

it's, like, man, there was just there was a lot of missteps

1:26:44

there. But I mean, ultimately,

1:26:46

it was the IRS agent that

1:26:49

basically got his name, and that's how they were able to connect it with the whole

1:26:51

investigation the FBI was doing, but I don't know, the

1:26:53

fact that they got full access to

1:26:56

a server That

1:26:59

doesn't make any sense to me. I wonder how they did that

1:27:01

because, you know, this supposed to

1:27:04

be, you know, when

1:27:06

you're conducting an instigation, you gotta do it within the parameters of

1:27:08

the law, and it sure seems like they didn't

1:27:10

stay within the parameters of the law. I

1:27:14

mean, this was I mean, we're talking about one of the

1:27:16

most encrypted, most difficult

1:27:18

things, cryptography, and all

1:27:20

these different things involved with with

1:27:22

these types of transactions in the dark net. I'm just

1:27:25

like they had to have had help from

1:27:27

other agencies that were never never

1:27:29

even disclosed. There's a lot of secrecy and

1:27:31

a lot of just clip watched that Ross' mother.

1:27:33

I mean, they you know,

1:27:35

if you wanted to try to restore

1:27:37

faith in the government, this sure didn't

1:27:39

do it because They're like,

1:27:41

this just creates even more distress because it's like, you're not even being transparent in your investigation. How did

1:27:43

you even get

1:27:48

this information? So I I think this

1:27:50

thing I think he needs a new trial of anything. Yeah. Like, if you're not gonna You're not gonna,

1:27:53

you know,

1:27:56

give him a different

1:27:58

sentence, like, at least let him actually have a fair trial where he's actually able to call, you know, his

1:28:00

defense team's actually able to

1:28:02

make a case for him. Because

1:28:06

the judges threw all that out. They're like,

1:28:09

nope. Here's here's the story. Here's

1:28:11

how it went down. And

1:28:13

we are you are gonna die in prison.

1:28:15

Everything that we know about Ross is that Ross is that seems like a great human. Like, he seems like

1:28:20

according to his family and everybody that knew

1:28:23

him. He's a smart guy. I mean, imagine all the good. And it's interesting, like, with Curtis and some

1:28:25

of these other guys, what they do

1:28:27

in these more elaborate you

1:28:31

know, online hacking crime syndicates and things

1:28:33

like that is they they get somebody and

1:28:35

then they flip you and they make

1:28:37

you work for the government. So

1:28:39

it's interesting that rather than sentencing Ross to life

1:28:41

in prison, why not use him as an asset for your agencies?

1:28:44

Why not use him as a

1:28:46

tool for the FBI to actually take

1:28:48

down the

1:28:50

the people running child porn rings on the dark net. Like, why not use his brain power and his he's

1:28:52

clearly smart. He clearly knows

1:28:54

a lot about this stuff. 236

1:28:59

why not use it for good rather than letting him rot in prison? Like

1:29:01

-- Yeah. -- it's just not the place.

1:29:03

Like, why not use him as a

1:29:06

tool? Such a

1:29:07

way. To take down the the actual shit that's

1:29:09

out there. Because they What do we know about the

1:29:11

government? There the war on

1:29:14

drugs is insane. Like, they give a shit more about that than they

1:29:16

do of actual disgusting --

1:29:18

Mhmm. -- crimes. And the thing is is,

1:29:20

like,

1:29:22

people are gonna do drugs no matter what, and

1:29:24

they're gonna get them no matter what. So it

1:29:26

goes back to the whole bigger

1:29:29

argument, which is probably honestly for another day

1:29:31

of like, Right.

1:29:32

Yes. Why are

1:29:33

we so pressed on making sure

1:29:35

that drugs stay

1:29:37

out of the hands of people

1:29:39

when we all know that people are do them. And in fact,

1:29:41

if you could lessen up on

1:29:43

the I guess,

1:29:46

how strict it is, you know, to

1:29:48

get these types of drugs, then it probably would be safer.

1:29:50

Like we've seen from weed -- Mhmm. -- in states where weed

1:29:54

is legal, we're not worried about people dying as much of, you

1:29:57

know, laced drugs or at least weed because you

1:29:59

can go buy it and you know where

1:30:01

it's coming

1:30:02

from. Yeah. And just look at countries

1:30:04

where all drugs are legal. Yeah. How much do

1:30:06

you think? Portugal is one of them, I think, or your quails. There's a few of them

1:30:08

out there. Well,

1:30:11

I mean, the reason is because it

1:30:13

takes from the government's bottom line. They're more involved in it. Yeah.

1:30:15

They're they're profiting. Private

1:30:15

pharma and everything. So The police are

1:30:18

profiting. And that's so irritating because I'm

1:30:20

like, okay, you wanna talk

1:30:22

about big pharma? Well, a lot of people who are addicted to pills is because something happened and

1:30:24

they went they got sick,

1:30:26

they had to have surgery, whatever.

1:30:30

So the pharmaceutical industry prescribes them drugs

1:30:32

--

1:30:33

Right. -- they get hooked to drugs, and

1:30:35

now they're addicted to It's a complete

1:30:37

double You'll find it. It's a completely double

1:30:39

standard. It's like, unless it serves the pharmaceutical

1:30:41

companies -- Yeah. -- it's illegal.

1:30:43

Right. Yeah. Right, you know.

1:30:45

Because until the pharmaceutical companies are manufacturing

1:30:48

LSD and, you know, shrooms and things like

1:30:50

that. All that's gonna be this, you know,

1:30:52

illegal substance. I

1:30:54

mean, luckily, we're starting on the state level to see things change. Like, Shrooms just got decriminalized here in Colorado,

1:30:59

which is great. And there's just

1:31:01

some you know, and we're actually starting to take them seriously and realizing, oh, wow. These things that

1:31:03

we thought were so harmful, which don't

1:31:06

get me wrong. Like, heroin

1:31:08

is harmful. There's no redeeming qualities to heroin,

1:31:10

but I think everybody as a human being, it

1:31:14

is a personal freedom

1:31:16

and liberty to be able to choose what you put in

1:31:18

your body. Just like everybody's the right to you know, women have the right to choose if they want an abortion or

1:31:21

not. We all have

1:31:23

these fundamental rights. It's our

1:31:25

body, no government or governing body should tell us what to do with it. I think it's

1:31:27

a hundred percent up to you. And and

1:31:32

By making it legal, you make it safer,

1:31:34

you keep it out of the hands of children, you keep it. And we kill the cartels. Right. The reason

1:31:36

why, like, the

1:31:39

cartels are running the

1:31:41

world in a way because of the war on drugs and because -- Mhmm. -- it allows the governments

1:31:43

to give, you know, give some

1:31:46

more reasons to fund the

1:31:49

border patrol and fund all these, you

1:31:51

know, all this military equipment and stuff. It just keeps the this industrial complex going

1:31:56

and they know that. And that's that's the real

1:31:58

reason behind it. It's not about, you know, they like to the politicians like to go on TV and be like, oh, you

1:32:00

know, keep it all

1:32:03

the hands of kids. And let's be

1:32:05

real. There is only, like, a handful of instances and who knows

1:32:07

if those can even be traced back to drugs on on the

1:32:09

silk roaster or not of

1:32:11

people, you know, having

1:32:14

issues as a result of getting drugs on the silk road. So it's like, what the silk road showed

1:32:17

us is that

1:32:20

it does create a safer

1:32:22

environment to --

1:32:22

Yeah. -- buy these substances. People are gonna if it's not available there, they're gonna go somewhere else.

1:32:26

Yeah. That's the thing.

1:32:28

And the wrist just goes up way

1:32:30

higher because and it's more dangerous and you're dealing, you you know, there's violence involved. So

1:32:32

it's like, to me, this

1:32:35

this was a glaring example

1:32:39

of how it should be. And Ross

1:32:41

Ross did that. And Ross and I

1:32:43

think that was his mission from the get go.

1:32:45

And you know what? He I think he succeeded

1:32:47

in his mission. Obviously, he he's

1:32:49

paying for it with his life, but I think he succeeded in making bringing

1:32:52

bringing it to

1:32:54

the forefront of of a

1:32:57

lot of people's minds of like, this

1:32:59

is this is messed up, this is not how it should be. you know, I