A man accused of running Silk Road 2.0, a revived Internet black market, was arrested by the FBI on Wednesday in San Francisco.
Blake Benthall, 26, also known as “Defcon,” is accused of attempting to resurrect the infamous Silk Road, a somewhat-secret website which allowed visitors to purchase anything from illicit drugs to murder-for-hire contracts. According to Ars Technica, the FBI reports that Benthall is facing charges of narcotics trafficking, computer hacking, money laundering, and fraudulent document trafficking, all of which carry weighty prison sentences.
What was Benthall doing with Silk Road 2.0, and what is he facing in federal prosecution?
After Silk Road 1.0 Went Down…
The original Silk Road (the website, not the historical trading route) was run by Ross Ulbricht, a San Francisco man who went by his online alias “Dread Pirate Roberts” or “DPR.” Ulbricht was arrested in San Francisco last year on drug conspiracy, money laundering, and murder charges, and his online bazaar of black market sales was shut down. The Justice Department seized $3.6 million in bitcoin (a …read more
Source:: Law Blog