Australian Peter Nash pleads guilty in US to Silk Road role
Date March 14, 2015 - 12:45PM
Peter Mitchell
Silk Road users could buy and sell heroin, cocaine, and other drugs.
Los Angeles: In a dark, seedy, encrypted corner of the internet visited by drug addicts, traffickers and crime gangs, Australian prison employee Peter Nash was known by a number of aliases.
He was Batman73 or Symmetry.
Others knew him as Samesamebutdifferent.
Sometimes he went as Anonymousass***.
There's a good chance the 41-year-old from Brisbane will be known for much of the rest of his life by a serial number in the US federal prison system.
Nash entered a guilty plea in a Manhattan court on Friday to one count of narcotics conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. He also faces up to 20 years' jail after admitting to one count of money laundering conspiracy.
"I deeply regret my conduct and any consequent harm I caused," Nash told the court.
The former behavioural scientist at Queensland's Wacol Prison was one of the key players involved in Silk Road, a hidden, black market bazaar website where users could buy and sell heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and other drugs, fake passports and hire hitmen.
The site operated via a Tor network, a system of computers on the internet and distributed around the world designed to conceal the identities of the networks' users who used bitcoins as currency.
Nash's guilty pleas came a month after Ross Ulbricht, the US mastermind behind Silk Road known as Dread Pirate Roberts, was convicted in a Manhattan court for narcotics trafficking and money laundering.
Prosecutors allege Silk Road was used by several thousand drug dealers and other unlawful vendors to distribute hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs and other illicit goods and services to well over a 100,000 buyers.
Nash, who admitted to earning $US30,000 from his role as the primary moderator on the site's chat room, told the court he used the money to buy drugs for his own personal use.
Nash will be sentenced on May 26.
Ulbricht, 30, also faces life in jail when sentenced on May 15.
Preet Bharara, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, praised the Australian Federal Police for their role in Nash's prosecution.
AAP
