Silk Road's Ross Ulbricht sentenced to life

originally posted by: Aazadan


He actually did kill someone. He hired a hitman previously, then hired one again and that's how the FBI caught him.

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That is not true. Did you even read into what really happened or are you just going to parrot the knee jerk spin the Main Stream Media has put on this story.

The attempted murder charges were dropped, most think because had they pursued charges then the FBI and DEA would look really bad for their role in setting up the hits, entrapment.

Ross Ulbricht did not kill anyone.

This trial was a case of a kangaroo court where the defendant had no chance, and the prosecution was given leeway in their quest to make Ross Ulbricht look like criminal, while many reasonable objections on the defendant's side where denied. The court even failed to consider the revelations about Carl Mark Force IV, the (ex) Baltimore DEA agent who is now being charged with money laundering and fraud as a result in his role as 'Nob, among other non-approved identities, a coc aine dealer on the Silk Road.

originally posted by: jrod
That is not true. Did you even read into what really happened or are you just going to parrot the knee jerk spin the Main Stream Media has put on this story.

I retracted it later in the thread. I thought his first hit was successful, it turns out neither was. Even so that's still 2 counts of attempted murder, though I can see where one could argue entrapment.

a reply to: Aazadan

How everything went down is so bizarre.

There is already a movie out about it.

Maybe in the future he can get a presidential pardon or something like that. I really feel he was made a scape goat because of a mis guided War on Drugs. I feel strongly that the US will see a paradigm shift in thinking when my generation starts finding ourselves in important positions of power.

Ross should have known the ABCs were after him, he likely was not aware of the manipulation tactics that informants and undercovers use, and he was a damn fool for staying in the US and not setting up shop somewhere the ABCs could not have found him so easily.

It also should be noted that luck played a factor here, the San Fran FBI agents wanted to a SWAT raid on his residence, despite NYC's FBI agent Chis Tarbell objections, which would have given him time to 'lock' his computer with encryption.

Even though Tarbell’s improvised bust was a complete success, cops are cops, and the local FBI was fuming at Tarbell’s departure from protocol. He and his team, considered computer dorks back home in New York, had the strange satisfaction of being called “#in’ cowboys” by a swarm of guys bristling with gear and guns. Tarbell took it as a compliment. Then he put Ross in an FBI cruiser bound for the local jail.

www.wired.com...

a reply to: jrod

I agree, Ross should have set up in some country where he wouldn't be extradited. Then again, there's a lot to be said for quality of life when you live in the US and have a whole lot of money.

Really, what it came down to was that his security wasn't good enough. I know he had good security, but as the FBI showed you only need to screw up once for them to get you and no one can practice perfect security at all times.

Oddly enough, as a result of the bust they ended up improving everyone elses security practices.

originally posted by: Aazadan
a reply to: jrod

I agree, Ross should have set up in some country where he wouldn't be extradited. Then again, there's a lot to be said for quality of life when you live in the US and have a whole lot of money.

That's another thing, he was apparently worth millions. Yet he lived in shared housing, only had a few sets of clothes and didn't even own a car. So he was hardly living a life of luxury. It also kind of proves he wasn't about the money, but rather for the cause. A market totally free of a totalitarian government that tries to dictate what a person is allowed to put into there own body.

Also, he could of pretty much had any quality of life he wanted, just about anywhere in the world with all that money. I think it just came down to him not being some hardcore mastermind criminal, just a dude with a passionate vision of a more liberated world free of government control.

By all accounts, a 23-year-old Dutch man named Cornelis Jan Slomp sold more illicit drugs on the Silk Road site than anybody. We're talking about massive quantities of amphetamine, ecstasy, and coc aine to '___' and everything in between.

But what a lucky man he was Thursday, getting handed a 10-year prison term—a giant break from the 40 years federal sentencing guidelines recommended.

A decade behind bars is a long time. But Slomp got off easy, at least comparatively, because the 31-year-old mastermind behind the Silk Road site, Ross Ulbricht, got a life sentence on Friday.

Cornelis Jan "SuperTrips" Slomp

Slomp was arrested in Florida in 2013. The US authorities in Chicago built a case against him while investigating drug shipments at O'Hare International Airport. Slomp's fingerprint was discovered on an envelope mailed from the Netherlands. Inside was ecstasy in a DVD case.

He clearly deserved his online moniker of "SuperTrips." Slomp needed weeks to detoxify in a Chicago jail cell. What's more, he was accused of performing 10,000 online drug transactions worth 385,000 bitcoins.

Link

Unlike corporations crime, the top man paid for the site existence while someone making use of it for many illegal sales gets a much shorter sentence.

In another article I read on this today, it referenced a tweet by someone pointing out that HSBC laundered $Billions for the Sinaloa cartels and got to pay a fine under the favoured "Deferred Prosecution Agreement" system.

Whilst I think everyone would agree with jailing drug pushers, and those profiting from it (discounting for a moment the ridiculously harsh life sentencing), the rather slanted playing field in the "justice" system right now shows itself to be a farce once again.

a reply to: Britguy

I do find it ironic that many of those who push the 'free market' ideals of capitalism are often the ones who want to see (illegal) drug profiteers prosecuted the fullest extent. That said given the volume of drugs that went through the Silk Road, the OD rate attributed to the site is much lower than the OD rate that Big Pharma has.

Is a website like Silk Road not an example of how a free market works?

The new definition is monopoly. There are not many vendors for most of the products today. Get good enough and be bought to limit competition.