Ross William Ulbricht's Laptop
This laptop belonged to an American cybercriminal named Ross William Ulbricht. Known online as Dread Pirate Roberts, Ulbricht ran a darknet market called the Silk Road from 2011 to 2013. (Click image to view high-res.)
This laptop belonged to an American cybercriminal named Ross William Ulbricht. Known online as Dread Pirate Roberts, Ulbricht ran a darknet market called the Silk Road from 2011 to 2013.
The Silk Road was a digital bazaar for illegal goods and services. Buyers and sellers could only visit the website through a browser called Tor—a network designed to conceal its users' locations.
The FBI worked with federal and state partners to find the Silk Road. On January 27, 2011, a tax agent discovered a post about the website on an online forum.
Eight months later, the agent saw that the same user had published a job posting. The posting directed interested parties to send their responses to an email account registered to Ulbricht.
Investigators traced a series of network records that they obtained under court warrants and eventually identified Ulbricht as a suspect.
The FBI arrested Ulbricht and seized his laptop on October 1, 2013. A judge sentenced Ulbricht to life in prison for drug trafficking, computer hacking, and money laundering in 2015.
The Silk Road generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales and more than $13 million dollars worth of Bitcoin in commissions. On November 3, 2020, law enforcement seized over $1 billion worth of digital currency from this case.
