Silk Road Arrests In Seattle, Britain, Sweden As Crackdown Continues
The takedown of the underground drug market Silk Road was apparently just the beginning. Since then, authorities have arrested Silk Road customers and dealers in Seattle, the UK, and Sweden—and promise more to come.
Tuesday, Silk Road was seized by the FBI and 29-year-old California resident Ross Ulbricht was charged with running the massive Amazon of drugs. In a court appearance last Friday, pictured in the courtroom sketch above, his lawyer denied all the charges. But the Silk Road story continues to grow, flying halfway across the world.
Here are the reported Silk Rod-related arrests since Tuesday:
- In Seattle, the FBI arrested 40-year-old Steven Lloyd Sadler in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue. Under the name Nod, Sadler was allegedly one of the Silk Road's favorite dealers of cocaine, heroin and meth. Sadler was busted after one of his customers in Alaska was busted and started cooperating, according to Brian Krebs.
- In the UK, authorities arrested three men in their 20s and one man in his 50s on drug offenses related to the Silk Road. "More arrests are expected in the coming weeks," according to the BBC.
- In Sweden, two Helsingborg men were arrested for allegedly selling cannabis on the Silk Road.
Meanwhile, the FBI is attempting to track down the Silk Road Bitcoin fortune. They've seized about 26,000 Bitcoins belonging to Silk Road customers but are still searching for over 600,000 Bitcoins—$80 million—Ulbricht himself is believed to have amassed while running Silk Road, according to the Guardian. The dream of the Dark Net dies hard.