Silk Road mastermind ‘spent $730K on 6 failed murder bids’
By Rich Calder and Erin Calabrese November 21, 2013 | 3:14pm
Bitcoins, the digital currency used in Silk Road transactions Inset: Ross Ulbricht Photo: AP
Ross Ulbricht — the scrawny alleged mastermind of a notorious anonymous drug bazaar called the Silk Road — spent $730,000 on a failed attempt to have six of his perceived enemies bumped off, federal prosecutors said Thursday in asking successfully that he remain held without bail.
Ulbricht’s supposed contract-hit currency of choice? Bitcoins, the feds allege, the same encrypted, digital coins of the realm that made Silk Road transactions devilishly tough to trace.
“It is not just fantasy — there was $730,000 that this man spent to kill six people,” Assistant US Attorney Serrin Turner told the judge in a packed Manhattan courtroom.
Turner said that his office has evidence that some $80,000 of the alleged hit loot was paid out through wired cash, with the rest paid through the virtual currency, Turner said.
The recipients of this windfall and the six intended victims were not described or named; prosecutors have previously accused Ulbricht of trying to kill just two people.
As added incentive for the judge to withhold bail, the prosecutor claimed in court that Ulbricht — who allegedly moved mass quantities of drugs, including hundreds of kilos of heroin, through transactions as easy as in ordinary online shopping — was trying to become a citizen of “several’ Caribbean countries, including Dominica.
Bogus documents Ulbricht sent in pursuit of those alternate citizenships were intercepted by Customs, the prosecutor said.
Ulbricht also allegedly had enough fake IDs for least ten aliases.
“He spent the last three years evading law enforcement and leading a double life,” Turner said. “People around him had no idea what he was up to. He thumbed his nose at law enforcement.”
Ulbricht was prepared Thursday to post $1 million in bail, through his parents, who “are willing to put up everything they have,” offered defense lawyer Josh Dratel.
More than a dozen people have sent letters on his behalf, the lawyer added, in arguing for bail. Ulbricht is also traveling and living in LA under his real name, the lawyer said.
“The actual facts establish that he is not a risk of flight,” he said.
But Magistrate Judge Kevin Fox said that regardless of the letters of support, “the accused has attempted to secure the murder of several people,” and has “the means to flee.”
