Silk Road | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Monday said it seized 50,676 Bitcoin in November 2021 that was stolen in the 2012 hack of the now-defunct Silk Road dark web marketplace. The bitcoin, which was obtained in 2012 and valued at $3.36 billion when it was discovered last year, is now worth $1.04 billion. Additionally recovered were $661,900 in cash, 25 Casascius coins with an approximate value of 174 Bitcoin, and gold- and silver-colored bars. It's also one of the largest cryptocurrency seizures to date, followed by the confiscation of $3.6 billion worth of bitcoin  earlier this February  tied to the 2016 breach of the Bitfinex crypto exchange. The Justice Department said it conducted the seizure on November 9, 2021, pursuant to a search warrant issued to James Zhong's house located in the U.S. state of Georgia. It also said the keys to the tokens were found in an underground floor safe and on a "single-board computer that was submerged under blankets in a popcorn t

An Irish national has been jailed for six-and-a-half years for his role as one of the administrators and forum moderators who helped run now-defunct dark web marketplace " Silk Road ." Gary Davis , 31, of Wicklow, Ireland, was known as 'Libertas' on the Silk Road website, then-largest underground black marketplace on the Internet used by thousands of people to buy and sell drugs and other illegal goods and services. Silk Road site administrators were responsible for, among other things, monitoring user activity on the underground website for any problem, responding to customer service inquiries, and resolving any dispute between buyers and vendors. Davis was indicted by U.S. federal prosecutors in 2013 when authorities shut down the Silk Road website and arrested its founder Ross William Ulbricht , who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 after being convicted on multiple counts related to the black marketplace. "During its operation from 2011 un

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An Irish national who helped run the now-defunct dark web marketplace Silk Road pleaded guilty on Friday to drug trafficking charges that carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Gary Davis , also known as Libertas, was one of the site administrators and forum moderators for Silk Road, then-largest underground marketplace on the Internet used by thousands of users to sell and buy drugs and other illegal goods and services. Silk Road went down after the law enforcement raided its servers in 2013 and arrested its founder Ross William Ulbricht , who has been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted on multiple counts related to the underground drug marketplace. The FBI also seized Bitcoins (worth about $33.6 million, at the time) from the website. Those Bitcoins were later sold in a series of auctions by the United States Marshals Service (USMS). According to a press release published by US Department of Justice, Davis helped the black market website "r

A former the United States Secret Service agent who stole hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoins during an investigation into then-largest underground marketplace Silk Road has now pleaded guilty to money laundering. Shaun W. Bridges is one of two former US undercover agents who pleaded guilty in 2015 to one count of money laundering and one count of obstruction and was sentenced in December same year to almost six years in prison for stealing over $800,000 in Bitcoin while investigating Silk Road. 35-years-old Bridges, who had been a Special Agent with the U.S. Secret Service for almost 6 years, along with his partner stole money from Silk Road accounts and framed someone else for the laundering, which even led the Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht to plan a murder. Ulbricht was convicted in February 2015 of running the Silk Road underground black market and is now serving life in prison sentence . According to the Department of Justice, Bridges is believed to

A winning anonymous bidder bought 2,700 Bitcoins ( worth roughly $1.6 Million ) in an auction held by the United States Marshals Service ( USMS ) on Monday. The US government announced at the beginning of this month its plans to auction 2,719 Bitcoins that were seized during several criminal, civil and administrative cases like Silk Road. The US Marshals confirmed to CoinDesk that four bids were received in the auction that took place between 13:00 and 19:00 UTC on August 22. The majority of the Bitcoins in the auction were stemmed from investigations of the Silk Road online black marketplace. Included 2,719 Bitcoins in the auction were: Around 1,300 Bitcoins seized from a civil case related to Matthew Gillum, a Silk Road drug dealer, who was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2015. Only 2.8 Bitcoins directly came from Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht , who was found guilty of operating Silk Road for illegal goods and handed two life sentences . Some 65 Bitcoins came

A former United States undercover agent who stole hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoins during an investigation into the underground drug marketplace Silk Road is now suspected of stealing even more of the cryptocurrency from two other cases. Shaun Bridges is one of two former US agents who pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced in December to almost six years in prison for stealing over $800,000 in Bitcoin while investigating the Darknet marketplace. Bridges and his partner stole money from Silk Road accounts and framed someone else for it, which lead the Silk Road chief Ross Ulbricht to plan a murder. Ulbricht is now serving life in prison sentence . Ulbricht was convicted in February 2015 of running the underground black market . According to court filings unsealed on Thursday, Bridges is believed to have stolen additional funds from a Secret Service account on two different occasions months after he was initially charged. Bridges and 46-year-old fo

In Brief According to an investigation, Matthew Edman, a cyber security expert and former employee of the Tor Project, helped the FBI with Cornhusker a.k.a Torsploit malware that allowed Feds to hack and unmask Tor users in several high-profile cases, including Operation Torpedo and Silk Road. Do you know who created malware for the FBI that allowed Feds to unmask Tor users? It's an insider's job… A former Tor Project developer. In an investigation conducted by Daily Dot journalists, it turns out that  Matthew J. Edman , a former part-time employee of Tor Project, created malware for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that has been used by US law enforcement and intelligence agencies in several investigations, including Operation Torpedo . Matthew Edman is a computer scientist who specializes in cyber security and investigations and  joined the Tor Project in 2008 to build and enhance Tor software's interactions with Vidalia software, cross-platform

An admin of Silk Road 2 , named Brian Farrell , who helped maintain the notorious dark web site by providing customer and technical support, approving and suspending vendors, and promoting staff members, has pleaded guilty and could face 8 years in prison. The 28-year-old man, who used the moniker " DoctorClu ," had been accused last year of being the right-hand to the creator of Silk Road 2.0, the copycat website inspired by the notorious online illegal drug marketplace. Silk Road 2.0 was shuttered in November 2014 after its creator Blake Benthall aka "Defcon" was arrested whose own criminal case is pending in federal court in New York. Silk Road has been described as "one of the most extensive, sophisticated, and widely-used illegal marketplaces on the internet today."  According to the Department of Justice, Silk Road 2.0 had generated "sales of at least approximately $8 Million in the United States currency per month" s

Just hours after the Australian man ' Craig Steven Wright ' outed as the possible real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto , the anonymous creator of Bitcoin, Australian Police raided his home in Sydney. Over 10 police officers raided Wright's home in the Sydney suburbs on Wednesday afternoon. They forcefully opened the door, and 'started searching the cupboards and surfaces of the garage.' However, the Sydney police raid at Wright's home is not associated with the claims of his being involved in creating Bitcoins, rather related to the Australian Taxation Office investigation, the Guardian reported . Wright was recently identified as the mysterious creator of Bitcoin, based on leaked transcripts of legal interviews and a number of emails and blog posts. However, neither Dr. Wright nor anyone else has publicly confirmed the real identity of the founder of Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto. In a statement, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers said the raids weren

Breaking Update:   Police Raid alleged Bitcoin Creator Craig Wright's Home in Sydney . Yes, Satoshi Nakamoto , the mysterious creator of the Bitcoin digital cryptocurrency has possibly been identified as an Australian entrepreneur, according to investigations independently done by Wired and Gizmodo . His name is Craig Steven Wright … ...at least based on some convincing evidence shown by both the publications. Bitcoin is a revolutionary virtual currency developed around Blockchain , a complicated cryptographic protocol and a global computers network that oversees and verifies which Bitcoins have been spent by whom. The identity of the ones spending Bitcoins are extremely difficult to trace because of its anonymous nature, therefore, are very popular among criminals. Also Read:   Meet The World's First Person Who Hacked His Body to Implant a Bitcoin Payment CHIP Satoshi Nakamoto is not only the father of an entire economy worth Billions of dollars,

The man accused of being "a senior advisor" and mentor of Ross Ulbricht , the convicted operator of the illegal drug marketplace Silk Road , has been arrested in Thailand and charged with conspiring to traffic drugs and money laundering. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced on Friday that Roger Thomas Clark , 54, is accused of being " Variety Jones ," who was a close confidante of Ulbricht's who: Advised Ulbricht on all aspects of Silk Road's operations Helped Ulbricht grow the notorious website into an extensive criminal enterprise Clark was arrested Thursday in Thailand and is now awaiting extradition to face United States charges of: Narcotics Trafficking Conspiracy – carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. Money Laundering Conspiracy – carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Life in Prison If convicted, Clark faces at least 10 years and as long as life in prison, according to a statement from Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet

Ross Ulbricht , the alleged founder and mastermind of the infamous online black marketplace Silk Road, has been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of narcotics conspiracy, money laundering and other criminal charges. This means the 31-year-old San Francisco man will die behind bars . With all the seven charges stemming from the creation and operation of the once the Internet's largest online illegal-drug marketplace, Ulbricht was facing 20 years at a minimum sentence, but making life in prison is the harshest possible sentence. Ulbricht's Life in Prison without any possibility of Parole: The sentence was made by Judge Katherine B. Forrest in a Federal District Court in Manhattan, though Forrest admitted it was a "very, very difficult" call to make , leaving Ulbricht without any hope of parole. Operating online as " Dread Pirate Roberts ," Ulbricht ran the $1.2 billion Empire from the year 2011 to 2013, armed just

Two former Federal investigators who helped to shut down the infamous black-market website ' Silk Road ' accused of fraud and stealing more than a Million dollars in Bitcoins during their investigation. Silk Road, an infamous online drug market that hosted more than $200 Million in transactions, was seized by the FBI in 2013, but during that period two of FBI agents took advantage of their position. CHARGES AGAINST FEDS The US Department of Justice indictment charges 46-year-old former Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) special agent Carl Force , and 32-year-old former Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges , with the following charges: Theft of government property Wire fraud Money laundering Conflict of interest MILLION DOLLAR EXTORTION Both Force and Bridges were part of Baltimore's Silk Road Task Force to investigate illegal activity in the black marketplace. The creator of Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, was arrested and found guilty of running the Tor-h

Evolution -- The largest Deep Web drugs marketplace, disappeared suddenly overnight from the Internet. But unlike Silk Road, there is no indication that the law enforcement took down the Evolution marketplace. The Darknet's most popular markets for drugs and bespoke carjacking services is mysteriously offline Wednesday with rumours circulating over the Internet that its own administrators may have just scammed its huge user base and stole $12 Millions in Bitcoin. The Evolution black marketplace opened in January 2014, and gained popularity after the shutdown of Silk ​Road and arrest of its unassuming founder, Ross U​lbricht , with a promise of less fraud. Like Silk Road , Evolution also dealt in drugs, as well as illegal weapons, counterfeit goods, stolen credit cards and guides to committing fraud. Evolution was only accessible through anonymity Tor network. At the time of its apparent vanish, Evolution was home to nearly 20,000 drug sales, far more than Silk Road

A jury has found Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht  a.k.a Dread Pirate Roberts  guilty on all seven counts and faces Life In Prison for running an underground black market i.e.  Silk Road . Ross Ulbricht, a San Francisco 30-year-old web developer was arrested by FBI in a sting operation in October 2013 accusing him of being the criminal mastermind running Silk Road, where hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal goods were traded. Ross Ulbricht had claimed that he had built Silk Road, but he was not the site's notorious ringleader " Dread Pirate Roberts. " The trial went on for just over three weeks and today the jury of six men and six women charged Ross Ulbricht with seven counts including money laundering, drug trafficking and computer hacking among other things. " The supposed anonymity of the dark web is not a protective shield from arrest and prosecution ," according to Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in a statement after the verdict. Prose

Multiple successors of the original Silk Road have come and all have been taken offline in recent years, but aside from selling illegal goods and services, they all have had one thing in common – they've all relied on the Tor network. A new version of the anonymous online black market Silk Road, has re-appeared on the dark web, but this time the website doesn't rely on the now infamous Tor network and neither it deals in only Bitcoins. The new version of the notorious online black market, dubbed " Silk Road Reload​ed ", launched Sunday on the little-known " I2P " anonymous network, dealing with a range of cryptocurrencies including the meme-inspired Dogecoin. In short, apart from the name, there is no connection between the original Silk Road website and the newly launched Silk Road Reloaded . Silk Road Reloaded is only accessible by downloading the special software called I2P (Invisible Internet Project) , or by configuring your systems

The joint operation by authorities of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and European law enforcement seized Silk Road 2.0 , an alternative to the notorious online illegal-drug marketplace last week, and arrested 26-year-old operator Blake Benthall, but that wasn't the end. US and European authorities over the weekend announced the seizure of 27 different websites as part of a much larger operation called Operation Onymous , which led to take-down of more than "410 hidden services" that sell illegal goods and services from drugs to murder-for-hire assassins by masking their identities using the Tor encryption network. " The action aimed to stop the sale, distribution and promotion of illegal and harmful items, including weapons and drugs, which were being sold on online 'dark' marketplaces, " according to the Europol press release . This globally-coordinated take down is the combined efforts of 17 nations which includes the law enforcemen

The authorities of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation have announced that they have arrested " Silk Road 2.0 " operator Blake Benthall , used the alias " Defcon " in California on Wednesday and charged him with conspiracy to commit drug trafficking, computer hacking, money laundering and other crimes. Silk Road 2, an alternative to the notorious online illegal-drug marketplace that went dark in October of 2013, has been seized in a joint action involving the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and European law enforcement. " As alleged, Blake Benthall attempted to resurrect Silk Road, a secret website that law enforcement seized last year, by running Silk Road 2.0, a nearly identical criminal enterprise, " Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement . " Let's be clear—this Silk Road, in whatever form, is the road to prison. Those looking to follow in the footsteps of alleged cybercriminals should understand that we will r

Last October, the ' Silk Road ' story broke when its owner Ross William Ulbricht , a 29-year-old who allegedly created and managed the Silk Road underground website, was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The police seized the website that was considered one of the most popular Underground places on the Internet for buying drugs and other illicit goods and services. Just some days after the Shutdown of Silk Road , Authorities in Britain, Sweden, and the United States arrested eight more vendors who dedicatedly used to sell illegal drugs on Silk Road. Yesterday, Cornelis Jan Slomp , a 22-year old Dutch man who allegedly used the Silk Road underground black market website to sell illegal drugs for bitcoins worth millions of dollars has agreed to plead guilty in Chicago federal court to federal drug conspiracy charge filed against him, according to a statement issued by U.S. Attorney Zachary T. Fardon in Chicago and Slomp's lawyer. FBI CASHING OUT  SEI