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Federal law enforcement agencies said Thursday they arrested the person they allege ran a Web site devoted to the buying and selling of illegal drugs using the virtual currency known as Bitcoin.
Officials with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the FBI and the Homeland Security Investigations agencies said they arrested Blake Benthall, known by the “Defcon” online moniker, for allegedly operating and owning the Silk Road 2.0 Web site. The original Silk Road site was shut down in 2013.
Like its similarly-named predecessor, Silk Road 2.0 relied on Bitcoin as the payment choice. Allegedly Benthall began operating the site in December 2013. As of September, Silk Road 2.0 generated sales of at least approximately $8 million per month and had approximately 150,000 active users. The site had more than 13,000 listings for controlled substances such as psychedelics, Ecstasy and cannabis.
San Francisco-resident Benthall, 26, was charged with several counts including conspiring to commit narcotics trafficking and money laundering conspiracy.
“It’s been more than a year since the FBI made an arrest of the administrator of the black-market bazaar, Silk Road, and here we stand again, announcing the arrest of the creator and operator of Silk Road 2.0,” said FBI assistant director-in-charge George Venizelos in a news release.” Following a very close business model to the first, as alleged, Blake Benthall ran a website on the Tor network facilitating supposedly anonymous deals of drugs and illegal services generating millions of dollars in monthly sales. Benthall should have known that those who hide behind the keyboard will ultimately be found.” The Tor network is an online service that masks user’s Internet addresses.
