Crime: FBI closes virtual black market Silk Road - TIME ONLINE

The FBI has the platform operator “Silk Road” were arrested, their offer of LSD reached to contract killing. The Bitcoin currency loses its value.

class=”articlemeta-date”> 3 October 2013 clock 12:18

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has taken the drug trade virtual space Silk Road from the network. The operator of the portal, Ross William Ulbricht, was arrested in San Francisco. He is accused of drug trafficking, fraud and money laundering conspiracy. This was announced by the Ministry of Justice.

Silk Road was a “huge black market” for drugs and other illegal products and services, according to the indictment, which was filed in a federal court in New York. Attorney Preet Bharara said the website had become “one of the most sophisticated criminal and largest market places on the internet”.

display

Internet users would purchase there cocaine, heroin and LSD, and can hire assassins. Also stolen credit card data and hacking software were offered for theft of passwords. The users were also there tips to avoid prosecution.

The 29-year-old founder of the platform, which was renamed the Internet as Dread Pirate Roberts, is also alleged to have given in March 2012, the murder of a user in order, which had threatened to reveal the identity of other customers of the page .

Bitcoins lose value

Silk Road was protected by the anonymity network Tor. For each transaction, customers had a commission in the amount of eight to 15 percent of pay, they settled in the virtual currency Bitcoin. Total should have been implemented over the side more than 1.2 billion dollars.

The FBI now turned bitcoins for the equivalent of about 3.6 million dollars (2.65 million euros) safely. After the closure of page Bitcoins lost value. The online retailer Mt.Gox estimated the value to $ 110, or 30 dollars lower than the previous day.

by the FBI had begun in November 2011. More than 100 investigators found face down and bought drugs, which were then analyzed in a laboratory. The drugs they received from dealers in the U.S. and Canada, but also from sellers from more than ten European countries, including the Netherlands, UK, Spain and France. According to the prosecution the site had nearly a million users in July, a third of them in the U.S..