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When the federal government took down the illicit drug laundering website Silk Road, it was the conclusion of a massive investigation and surveillance operation conducted over several years from multiple offices. The investigation culminated in the arrest of Ross Ulbricht, aka the Dread Pirate Roberts, who was convicted of all charges and faces 30 years to life in prison. It’s now emerged that two of the federal agents working on the case used it as an opportunity to siphon hundreds of thousands of dollars in black market profits into their own personal accounts.
The complaint names two agents, Carl Mark Force IV (DEA) and Shaun Bridges (USSS). The two men worked on a Baltimore-based task force that investigated Ulbricht, one of several such organizations across the United States. Initially the plan was to charge Ulbricht with conspiracy, but the criminal behavior of the two agents appears to have tainted that plan. What they’re accused of is fairly damning.
According to the sworn affidavit, Force created unofficial fictitious personas and contacted Ulbricht directly with an offer to not turn over information to the DEA in exchange for $250,000. In case any of you are keeping score at home, that right there is plenty fraudulent enough for the DEA to prosecute, since the Drug Enforcement Agency is known for taking a dim view of its agents making deals with drug kingpins.
Force, however, wasn’t finished. He created a false persona, French Maid, and sold information about the government’s case to Ulbricht for a further $100,000. Force then took money that was transferred to his official investigatory accounts as part of the federal case against the Silk Road and sent them to his personal accounts. The fact that he took some pains to hide this activity is beside the point — one of the characteristics of Bitcoin is that transactions can be traced.
Force also acted as the de facto Chief Compliance Officer for a BTC business, CoinMKT, even going so far as to be featured in CoinMKT’s pitch decks to venture capital investors. He also used his status as a DEA agent to freeze the accounts of other CoinMKT users.
In other words: A DEA agent extorted money from a drug lord, sold case information to that same individual, and abused his status as a DEA agent while moonlighting in the heady-world of shady cryptocurrency startups.
The other agent, Bridges, stole coins from Silk Road, sold them through Mt. Gox, and then used his own status as a US Secret Service agent to sign off on the raids that seized Mt. Gox’s accounts and its BTC. Once he learned that his own activities had caught the attention of others on the Baltimore Task Force, he attempted to move funds out of these accounts and into more secure holdings.
It’s not clear yet if the lawyers that handled Ulbricht’s case will try to use these clear cases of malfeasance to break his client out of prison, but we’d be surprised if he didn’t try. Ulbricht’s lawyer, Joshua Dratel, has already implied that he knew about the corruption scandal four months ago but was forbidden to disclose this information at trial.
None of the accusations against Force or Shields involve flatly manufacturing charges or evidence, so it’s possible that there’ll be no impact on the Dread Pirate Robert’s conviction. At the very least, it demonstrates that the line between the criminals and the agents investigating them was considerably thinner than the federal government will want to admit.
Dois agentes federais que investigam a queda do mercado de drogas ilícitas Silk Road foram acusados ​​de lavagem de dinheiro e fraude eletrônica em uma acusação lançado na segunda-feira pelo Departamento de Justiça dos EUA (DOJ).

Os agentes, da Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Carl Mark Força IV (46 anos de idade); do Serviço Secreto dos EUA (USSS) Shaun W. Pontes (32 anos de idade), foram acusados ​​de extorsão de moeda virtual Bitcoin durante a investigação federal em 2013 que levou à eventual prisão do criador do site de Ross Ulbricht. O DOJ afirma que Força criou duas identidades falsas no site, uma tentativa de branquear 250.000 dólares de Ulbricht (aka Dread Pirate Roberts) depois de ameaçar revelar sua informação com a DEA, e outro transacionar $ 100.000 em troca de informações sobre a investigação do governo.

Pontes foi acusado de fiação $ 820.000 no valor de Bitcoin, coletadas como parte das operações encobertas feitas durante a investigação, em uma conta pessoal com câmbio japonês Mt. Gox; Apenas dois dias antes de pedir uma apreensão da empresa e todas as suas contas de 2.100 mil dólares. Ele também foi acusado de lavagem de dinheiro e roubo de propriedade do governo.

Força foi preso em Baltimore em 27 de março e Ponte tem, desde a auto-se rendeu na segunda-feira seguinte a acusação. Não está claro ainda se estas acusações de corrupção no governo vai chamar para o novo julgamento de Ulbricht, que em fevereiro foi sentenciado a uma condenação de 30 anos por tráfico de drogas, pirataria informática e lavagem de dinheiro. Em uma declaração feita na segunda-feira, o Departamento de Justiça afirma que "as acusações contidas na denúncia são meramente acusações, e os réus são presumidos inocentes, a menos e até que se prove a culpa." Com a atual falta de elementos de defesa para apoiar a condenação de ambos Força e Bridges, a investigação deve continuar.

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