Former feds charged with stealing Silk Road bitcoin | The Compost Bin | Forums

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A Secret Service agent and a DEA agent with lead roles in the investigation to take down the Internet drug bazaar Silk Road allegedly stole proceeds from the underground site and hid their booty in offshore accounts.

Former DEA agent Carl Force, 46, of Baltimore, the task force agent charged with going undercover to communicate online with Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht, known as Dread Pirate Roberts, allegedly used several online aliases to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin from Ulbricht, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Monday. Force is charged with money laundering, wire fraud, theft and conflict of interest.

Prosecutors also charged Shaun Bridges, 32, of Laurel, Md., a former special agent with the U.S. Secret Service, who allegedly accessed Silk Road accounts using password information from a Silk Road customer service representative arrested in a drug sting. Bridges, who joined the Secret Service in 2009, is charged with wire fraud and money laundering.

The FBI shut down Silk Road and arrested Ulbricht on Oct. 2, 2013. Silk Road, a dark Web black market that traded in illegal drugs, counterfeit IDs and computer hacking software, required its buyers and sellers to do business in bitcoin, an anonymous digital currency that is difficult to trace.

A federal jury in New York convicted Ulbricht last month on drug conspiracy charges. Ulbricht, who will be sentenced in May, was also the target of an investigation in Maryland. Force and Bridges worked on the Maryland investigation.

Prosecutors say Force, in addition to his official undercover identity as "Nob," created several unauthorized online aliases, so he could conduct complex bitcoin transactions to steal from the government and Ulbricht.

In one transaction, Force, using his second alias, allegedly demanded Ulbricht pay him $250,000 in bitcoin not to disclose information to the government. Posing as a woman named Carla under the alias "French Maid," Force allegedly offered to sell Ulbricht information about the government's investigation in exchange for $100,000 worth of bitcoin.

http://www.usatoday....../70672058/