
Feds: Silk Road boss paid $80,000 for snitch’s torture and murder - tptacek
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/feds-silkroad-boss-paid-80000-for-snitchs-murder-and-torture/
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tptacek
Holy shit.

He paid $80k to an _undercover cop_ to have someone else killed.

Incidentally: Thomas Ptacek's First Rule Of Internet Violent Crime (based on
something like a decade of news stories):

If you ask someone you meet on the Internet to accept money in exchange for
killing somebody, and they say yes, THEY'RE A COP.

~~~
d23
Do any of you actually believe any of this shit? Do you realize what level of
distraction we're likely reading at this point? Keep a healthy dose of
skepticism for the next few weeks until everything settles down. The
authorities are probably not going to be releasing the truth if they still
have the means to catch other criminals in the same way they caught DPR.

~~~
tptacek
You think the DOJ invented an entire murder-for-hire scheme with an undercover
cop in a federal indictment because they're intent on convincing message board
nerds to distrust Bitcoin?

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WalterSear
The are less-probable sounding things in the news these days.

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jcampbell1
The indictment is much better than the article.

An undercover agent posing as a smuggler, wants to unload 10 kilos. DPR sets
him up with a major silkroad vendor who is also an employee. The undercover
agent sends the drugs, and arrests DPR's employee. DPR doesn't realize that he
was responsible for getting the employee arrested, and then hires the
undercover agent to kill his ex-employee.

~~~
encoderer
Reading the alleged DPR dialog I can't help thinking this guy thought he was
some Walter White character. Or maybe I just have Breaking Bad on the brain...

~~~
jcampbell1
It is more like the making of Breaking Bad. The FBI staged torture photos of
DPR's ex-employee. I imagine Jesse's makeup artist went from his day job to
the FBI.

What is funny, is DPR got away with the murder for hire plot. They tried to
set him up by making him do a bank transfer. After having seen the photo's,
the undercover agent thought he would send the money non-anonymously, but DPR
used some now defunct Australian anonymous wire service. It took the FBI
several months to locate him.

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freyr
_> After having seen the photo's, the undercover agent thought he would send
the money non-anonymously_

"Oh hey, you're a violent thug who murders people for money? I'm a random guy
running a billion dollar underground drug marketplace. Here's my contact
info..."

After seeing the photos, I'd be absolutely sure to send the money anonymously.

~~~
jcampbell1
You are right. I was thinking of a payment that would be untraceable by a
hitman, but traceable by the FBI. The payment method he used was not traceable
by either.

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brucehart
Wow! So his claim in the other indictment wasn't just a silly negotiating
tactic. And he admitted his involvement to another person solely to try to
save a few bitcoins when he allegedly had $80 million worth in his account! An
amount so large that he would be lucky to be able to launder even a tiny
fraction (even if he bought a car wash or laser tag arena).

This guy has been watching too many TV shows. He's actually lucky he got
caught before he was on the receiving end of violent antics like his. The
Walter Whites of the real world don't have a life full of adventures
outsmarting criminals and staying one step ahead of the cops. They live
desperately on edge until they make a small misstep that gets them thrown in
prison or killed.

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dethstar
I live in Mexico and I have seen facebook profiles of guys wearing their
_insert any kind of organized crime organization related to drugs_ "uniform".
Like its just there, its listed as their job sometimes, too. Like, granted not
all people that list it actually do it. But still, can you imagine just doing
a regular search on Facebook and having hundreds of people to arrest?

War on drugs my ass. Use of NSA privacy-breaking technology to fight "the bad
guys" my ass.

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ok_craig
Why would DPR hire a smuggler?

Why would DPR delete the photo evidence, but not the chat log evidence?

Are there transactions in the blockchain that represent the payment? Can we
find them?

Is this part of the story something that can feasibly be made up after the
fact?

Was SR a voluntary exchange with no victims, and for DPR to do real time,
would some charge like this have had to have been found?

Edit: I'm not necessarily saying I believe he's innocent, but this part of the
story seems so strange to me that I really think these questions are worth
asking.

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PhasmaFelis
For question #5, at least, the answer is "definitely not". The feds have never
had the slightest bit of trouble putting completely non-violent friendly
neighborhood dealers away for decades.

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patrickg_zill
Does anyone believe it?

I would need to see a lot more proof... remember that Julian Assange of
Wikileaks was accused of rape in an attempt to discredit him.

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Pinatubo
Is there some evidence that vindicates Julian Assange that I'm unaware of? If
not, how do you know the accusations aren't valid?

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ok_craig
Is there some evidence that says that god is not real?

That's not really a great argument... the burden of proof is on the person
claiming it.

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DanBC
patrickg_zill is making a claim - that the rape accusations are to discredit
Assange.

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ok_craig
That's kind of sidestepping my point. He said two things:

1) There was a rape accusation

2) The accusation was made to discredit Assange

My statement that "the burden of proof is on the person claiming it" is
relevant to both parts individually. Neither the rape accusation or the
discredit argument have been proved, therefore judgment should be withheld on
both. Just because the second is a claim that hasn't been proven, doesn't mean
the first is true.

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mortehu
So do you, or do you not, believe that there was a rape accusation?

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ok_craig
Yes there was an accusation, and I don't understand your point in asking.

Edit: getting pedantic with this but oh well. I guess the language "doesn't
mean the first is true" was ambiguous. I did not mean to say that #2 being a
claim that hasn't been proven meant that #1 may or may not have happened in
the first place, I meant to say that #2 being a claim that hasn't been proved
does not mean that the accusation itself, which truly was made, was true.

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dkhenry
So does this new information validate that this service that provided for the
exchange of illegal narcotics was in fact evil and should have been shut down
much sooner.

How does this knowledge effect the ongoing debate about digital privacy ?

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ihsw
No, this information is just hearsay. This is a PR campaign by the Obama
administration to justify cracking down on Bitcoin and Tor.

Until DPR has tried and convicted we should assume that all reporting on this
criminal investigation is lies and slander. I'm not trying to defend DPR,
torture, or any of that, but we need to hold ourselves to higher standards.

This kind of news caters directly to us -- the affluent tech crowd -- and we
should be especially careful. The submitters of these news articles will need
to be closely scrutinized as well.

~~~
tptacek
The Obama administration is so concerned about Bitcoin that they created a
fake murder for hire scheme instrumented by a fake undercover cop documented
in a federal indictment that supersedes another federal indictment that
_explicitly says Bitcoin has lawful uses_ , and is so concerned about Tor
that... what, they stopped funding it?

~~~
ihsw
I'm not saying that DPR is innocent, on the contrary. I'm saying that the
government will be using this as an opportunity to shout from the highest
mountaintops that decentralized systems of currency/information transfer is
dangerous.

Of course, those doing the shouting will be the mainstream media --
mouthpieces of the government.

Criminal investigations are one thing, but guiding and manipulating the
general populace is something else entirely. Tomorrow we will definitely be
seeing lots of news about DPR, Bitcoin, Tor, and drugs -- this situation will
be spun to high hell, both for supporting decriminalization and undermining
it.

~~~
tptacek
Did you miss the part about how the indictment said _the opposite_ about
Bitcoin?

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ihsw
If the media reports that -- despite DPR's unsavoury activities -- BTC has its
uses then I will quickly and happily eat crow. I'm expecting the worst
tomorrow, especially considering all elements in the situation have very poor
reputations (Silk Road, BTC, Tor, Tor hidden services).

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nullc
Why the @#$@# did they let this guy go free for almost 8 months after this?

It was long enough that he attempted to put out another hit... it looked like
a con in retrospect, but someone might actually be _dead_ because of this
delay.

What were they thinking?

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jessaustin
It's a good question, but I suspect maybe they just thought the risk of this
particular alleged attempted hitman-hirer _successfully_ hiring an actual
hitman was low. That is, if you have to hire this done, you probably
shouldn't. Most who are satisfied with the services of hitmen they've
employed, have already killed multiple people themselves, or they're at least
plugged into one or more criminal enterprises that utilize violence regularly.

I don't have any particular knowledge of any of the above.

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axaxs
I find the hitman idea rather silly. I will preface this by saying, that I do
think there are, in some organized groups, probably such thing as a hitman. A
loner, on the internet...don't count on it.

So, you pay $40,000 up front. That's then mine to walk away with. Or heck, I
can then threaten to go to the cops unless you give me the other half. You
surely wouldn't go to the cops about this little scam, right? You obviously
don't have the fortitude or skill to do it yourself or you wouldn't have paid
me, so I'm not worried about you coming after me. That would only leave you to
hire another nonexistent hitman, to come after me, who would without doubt be
a cop or fellow scam artist.

Seems like this isn't a good idea to begin with now, doesn't it?

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nthitz
He paid for it, but for what it's worth, it did not happen. Certainly not a
good idea regardless...

I do wonder about the name Dread Pirate Roberts though... I feel there has to
be at least one other DPR.

~~~
adamnemecek
Supposedly there has been at least one another person who was the original
founder and who was bought out by the dude they arrested. Lemme find sauce.

EDIT:

Here's something [http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/meet-
th...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/meet-the-dread-
pirate-roberts-the-man-behind-booming-black-market-drug-website-silk-road/2/)

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clarkm
In the complaint filed in SDNY, the FBI spends a couple pages detailing the
reasons that they believe Silk Road only had one owner, and why the "sale" was
just an attempt to confuse people.

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mmmooo
Somehow I thought it was a known thing, that outside of the movies, if you
found a hitman, that is willing to do the deed, he's either a con artist or an
officer of the law.

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CoachRufus87
Seriousness aside, this would make one hell of a show. I bet someone is
working on a script right now.

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ianstallings
I guess using Occam's razor doesn't apply to this case. Because a lot of
people seem to be in complete denial about this whole thing.

What's most likely? That he in fact _was_ running the Silk Road and _did_ do
these deeds that we see provided as evidence to a court system, or that it was
all made up and it's just "too neat", and it was all a grand conspiracy to
frame this guy?

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j2d3
This story does not add up. It makes no sense, and I don't believe it.

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whatever18
Another article on this story says that the cops seized $3.6 million worth of
bitcoins when closing Silk Road. Wondering what they'll do with all these
bitcoins... selling then to crooks or twins?

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matthewbaker
... And now we have a lead on a Breaking Bad replacement!

Get Netflix producing and Vince Gilligan writing and I will pay for a season
upfront.

Please?

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ivanbrussik
what a moron. this guy really thought he could run a cartel from a library
without getting his own hands dirty.

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31reasons
I think the whole story will have serious consequences for the poor BitCoin.

