The third question of my Silk Road trivia quiz turned out to be a tough one. The question posed to Reddit and Twitter users was: In May 2013 which former Silk Road moderator had their account taken over by law enforcement, eventually leading to HSI officer Jared der Yergihan being able to infiltrate Silk Road, working undercover as a trusted
Today is Day 2 of my Silk Road Trivia Quiz as we count down to the tenth anniversary of the shutdown of Silk Road. Very few people got the answer to yesterday’s question, but it was a pretty tough one. I thought today’s would be equally tough, but a much higher proportion got this one. Twitter users did better than
Next week is the tenth anniversary of the shutdown of Silk Road and the arrest of its founder, Ross Ulbricht (currently serving life without the possibility of parole). Silk Road was the true OG darknet market that paved the way for all those that came after. It should be remembered as the revolution it was. In this spirit, I’ve started
The sentencing of Silk Road’s Variety Jones, aka Plural of Mongoose, aka cimon, aka Ross Ulbricht’s mentor, aka Roger Thomas Clark was held at 10:00am on July 11, 2023, in courtroom 23A of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse that houses the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. This is going to be a
The Silk Road saga continues with the indictment of James Ellingson, known by numerous aliases on the platform, most famously as ‘redandwhite’. But is he in the US? Is he possibly even in the same establishment as Variety Jones? Last week, a certain James Ellingson was charged with drug and money laundering offences connected to Silk Road, and his indictment
A decade on from the dramatic implosion of Silk Road, a fascinating character waits in the wings for his fate to be decided – Roger Clark, the man behind the Variety Jones moniker and the instigator of the now infamous murder-for-hire plots. Or was he? It’s closing in on ten years since Silk Road shut down, its owner and staff
This week, one of the world’s most prolific serial killers, Pedro Rodrigues Filho, known as Pedrinho Matador, or “Killer Petey”, was murdered in Brazil. Despite over a hundred kills, he had been released from prison due to Brazilian laws not allowing anyone to spend over 30 years incarcerated (and even so, he spent more than that in prison). A few
News today is reporting that bitcoin worth just shy of $1 billion, believed belonging to Silk Road and dormant since Ross Ulbricht’s arrest in 2013, has just moved address. (As an aside, the transaction cost $12 in fees) Several years ago, while researching The Darkest Web, I had reason to visit Roger Thomas Clark, aka “Variety Jones”, mentor and adviser
Most of you would have heard of the Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs, two Ukrainian teenagers when went on a two-week killing spree in 2007. By the time they were captured, the boys had killed at least 21 people and seriously injured many more. Their weapon of choice was a yellow-handled hammer. Their crimes were heinous enough, but made infinitely worse by the
My new book is finally available for purchase. It’s a foray into the world of serial killers who use the internet in some way to commit or promote their crimes. A pair of teens go on a murderous rampage and their exploits are immortalized in the most shocking video ever to circulate the internet, “3 Guys, 1 Hammer” A
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