The pieces contained small amounts of drugs, sometimes only a single pill. In 2012, a Homeland Security Investigations agent investigated packages that were seized at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.

Ross used “SilkRoad” or “Admin” as screen names before this point, but when they decided on “Dread Pirate Roberts,” it gave them an opportunity to create the fiction that Dread Pirate Roberts was a title passed down from one man (Ross) who created the website and handed it off to another Dread Pirate Roberts (whoever took over after Ross’s arrest). That person suggested that Ross use a fake name for security purposes in case something happened to him so someone else could take over the site. One of those people became his mentor and confidante, giving him advice on how to run Silk Road better. He also didn’t have the coding skills required to protect himself, so he hired people who did. Ross Ulbricht knew he needed to be more secure. Senator Chuck Schumer held a press conference denouncing it and called for law enforcement to shut down Silk Road. Thousands joined the site after this news was published. This attracted attention from other sites and led to media coverage of the story. In June 2011, a blogger wrote about the Silk Road on Gawker. Eventually, people could also order body parts such as kidneys and livers through this site.

Soon after that, he started to receive orders for mushrooms from customers who were looking to buy drugs online, and more dealers appeared with different types of drugs for sale. The founder used the screen name Altoid and left comments on a couple of forums about the website. It didn’t have much publicity, but it quickly became popular. The Silk Road was launched in January 2011. The first product he sold were psychedelic mushrooms, which he grew in his own home. He built the site mostly by himself and taught himself programming languages as needed. The Silk Road founder was not keen on revealing his plans.

In order to do this, he would need programming code for his site that used Tor and bitcoins so that people couldn’t trace transactions on his website. He also wanted to create an anonymous marketplace where people could buy and sell anything. Ross Ulbricht was a libertarian who believed in the legalization of drugs. In order to bring down Ross’s business and close down the Silk Road, law enforcement officers from four different agencies had a huge task ahead of them. Ross believed that this was a way for people to freely buy and sell what they wanted without being subjected to laws he didn’t agree with. The website allowed users to sell illegal drugs anonymously and without government interference. Ross Ulbricht worked out of his apartment in Austin, Texas to create an online drug marketplace called the Silk Road. 1-Page Summary of American Kingpin “The Amazon of Drugs”

American kingpin review