The FBI has seized and shut down Silk Road, an online criminal bazaar, and arrested Ross William Ulbricht, the man they said created and operated the site, CNN reported. Ulbricht was charged with narcotics trafficking, computer hacking and money laundering.
The Silk Road web site had been considered the 'it' place to find black market illegal products, like drugs, weapons, even a place to hire an assasin, in a clandestinely money-run operation. The site had over 957,000 registered users, the FBI said.
"Based on my training and experience, Silk Road has emerged as the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet today," FBI Special Agent Christopher Tarbell said in the criminal complaint.
The only money accepted for the illegal transactions on the site was the digital bitcoin, which was part of its money laundering operation, news reports said. Dummy transactions were used as part of an intricate system "to digitally conceal where the money came from," CNN reported. The FBI said the site generated revenue worth the equivalent of approximately $1.3 billion, or 9.5 million bitcoins.
Undercover agents used Silk Road to buy ecstasy, cocaine, heroin and LSD, while also purchasing hacking software, as the FBI intercepted communication sent from Ulbricht's account, leading to his arrest.
In the criminal complaint, the FBI claimed that Ulbricht was the infamous "Dread Pirate Roberts" who created Silk Road, who gave an interview to Forbes magazine in August.
Ulbricht was arrested at the Glen Park branch of the San Francisco Public Library at 3:15 p.m. PT on Tuesday, CNN reported.
