1. This is irrelevant to what I was discussing. No MDMA dealer is committing any violence. The fact that Ross Ulbricht's opsec was allegedly bad enough that he could be blackmailed isn't a general fact about darknet markets.
2. That entire exchange is totally trumped up. This is the exchange the complaint alleges occurs:
BLACKMAILER: Pay me $X. I need it to pay DEBTOR.
DPR: Let me speak to DEBTOR.
DEBTOR: Hello, this is DEBTOR.
DPR: I will pay you $X/4 to kill BLACKMAILER.
DEBTOR: We want $X/3.
DPR: I have had men killed for $X/5, but I will pay you $X/3.
DEBTOR: It's done. Nice doing business with you.
DPR: Likewise.
As far as I'm aware, no actual murder victim has ever turned up, and none of the parties except Ross have been arrested. The exchange sounds much more like a negotiation tactic than an actual contract killing, and is much more reasonable if you read it as such.
But of course this is irrelevant to people who want to use it to horns-effect anything within an arms reach of the greatest project in harm reduction the world has ever seen. To put it another way, people died this last year, this summer, this week probably, from bad drugs. There is no reason why the modern world cannot supply these drugs safely, and darknet markets seem to do a better job than anything else.
But go ahead and parrot the DEA line. Just remember that those who aren't on the right side of history are inevitably on the wrong side of it.
It wasn't dropped, I wish people would stop parroting that line. He was indicted in two separate jurisdictions, NY and Maryland. Maryland indicted him for 'Planned Violence' which includes one count of murder for hire. The NY charges are the ones that he's currently facing, the Maryland charges are still in the wings.
Yeah, what's a few contract killings among friends...