Ross Ulbricht Trial: Undercover Federal Agent Reveals Silk Road Investigation

NEW YORK (InsideBitcoins) – Catching Ross Ulbricht and accusing him of being Dread Pirate Roberts, the leader of Silk Road, would not have been possible without many months of undercover work, the prosecution revealed to jurors on Wednesday, as the Silk Road trial of Ulbricht continued.
Jared Der-Yeghiayan, a U. S. Department of Homeland Security special agent, told how he took over a Silk Road moderator’s account in July 2013, which allowed him to collect information on Dread Pirate Roberts.
Every day, for about 10-12 hours, Yeghiayan would help moderate the Silk Road forums. In exchange, he would be paid $1,000 in bitcoin every week.
But Yeghiayan’s journey toward Ulbricht’s arrest would start a couple of years earlier when he first was introduced to Silk Road. In 2011, after seeing an increase in ecstasy shipped via the mail, he started an investigation.
‘We hadn’t seen ecstasy being seized in letter-class like that in a long time.’
‘We hadn’t seen ecstasy being seized in letter-class like that in a long time,’ Yeghiayan said, referring to a table with more than 20-letter sized envelopes used to ship the drug. All told, the government made 52 separate purchases from 40 different dealers in 10 countries. Only one of the shipments didn’t match what they had purchased.

This post was published at Inside Bitcoins on Jan 15, 2015.