End of Silk Road as FBI Shuts Down Illicit Website

Since the days of the Roman Empire, traders traveled a network of routes winding from China and India to the Mediterranean Sea, known as the Silk Road. A young entrepreneur relied on the name in launching an internet site in 2011 that peddled illegal drugs, and other products and services. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation closed the site and arrested Ross William Ulbricht. The Los Angeles Times reports that prosecutors described him “as a criminal mastermind who built an illegal drug empire that they estimated had $1.2 billion in sales over the last three years, earning him $80 million. Silk Road was the drug world's equivalent of EBay, acting as a matchmaker between dealers and buyers worldwide.” The site emphasized secrecy with passwords; Tor connections; and use of Bitcoins, said to be as untraceable as cash. Ulbricht’s social media sites, according to the Los Angeles Times, touted an anti-government stance. US investigators now have access to the software that protected identities and locations of Silk Road’s buyers and dealers. – YaleGlobal