Show Notes 

The following presentation may not be suitable for young children. Listener discretion is advised. 

COLD OPEN

SFX: Ambient sounds of a cafe. Milk steaming. Espresso grinding. A barista yells, “Cold foam latte ready!”. Clicking of a keyboard

It’s mid-morning on a Friday in Los Angeles, and the cafe up the block is bustling. Stevie Horton’s eyes flicker around nervously. I don’t think I’ll bump into anyone I know here. But she peaks over her laptop to take another look. Just in case. She’s huddled up in the corner, careful not to show her screen to any unsuspecting eyes. Yet, she still can’t shake the feeling that everyone’s eyes are focused on her. A feeling she doesn’t like. She went to the café this morning because she didn’t want her boyfriend to come home and find her huddled over her laptop…ordering drugs.

That happened once before, and the outcome was not fun. 

I know it looks bad, but it’s not like I’m some kind of junkie with a needle sticking out of my arm. 

Stevie has been killing herself working two jobs to keep a roof over her and her out-of-work actor boyfriend's head. A few months ago, a girl from Stevie’s office mentioned this website that was like the Amazon.com of drugs. You could order whatever you wanted anonymously and get it shipped right to your door. She thought it was too good to be true like anyone else would. But then she saw an article about it online, and her mild interest became wicked curiosity. 

Stevie just needed something for energy and pep since she hardly slept. Coffee wasn’t getting it done. So, recently she graduated to something a little stronger: cocaine. 

Accessing this site was a little different from most sites on the internet. But, after reading a few articles, Stevie was finally ready to give it a shot. That was three months ago. 

Now at the cafe, she hopped onto the Tor browser like a certified pro and connected to the Tor network. Stevie didn’t know exactly what Tor did, but she knew it made her anonymous and invisible online. She had the web address already memorized; she had probably accessed this website a hundred times now. Sometimes she would spend virtually all day on the site chatting on message boards with other anonymous users. But not today. Today she needed to re-up her “medicine.” She ended the web address with .onion, hit the enter button, and a white page loaded with a bright green font saying: “Welcome to the Silk Road!!” Easy breezy, lemon squeezy.

The list of drugs was all on the left-hand side of the screen, organized by category: Uppers, downers, weed, painkillers, and much more. Stevie clicked on “uppers.” Her eyes scanned the cafe crowd again, making sure she didn’t bump into anyone she knew. She scrolled down to the heading titled ‘cocaine’ and hit enter. In an instant, there was a list of 25 different sellers all pedaling the same thing: pure white happy dust. The last time she bought from a dealer who sold under the code name CY but that batch he sent was too fucking weak. She needed something more potent. She wasn’t a drug addict. She just needed to get through her day. Maybe have a little more fun when she hits the bars at night with the girls. 

Just like Amazon, all sellers had ratings, and customers could leave reviews. Never with their real names, of course, always under a handle.  Stevie’s handle for the site? Raven. She liked Poe.

She scrolled through a few more reviews before deciding to buy from someone named Seapunk. All of his reviews were great, and people were saying his shit was strong. Just what she was looking for.

Stevie’s laptop dinged once the Bitcoin transferred into Raven’s account and promptly placed an order for an eightball. A confirmation number was saved to her profile, and now all she would have to do is wait. Her meds would be on her front porch in 3-5 business days, and Stevie would be back in business.

By the time the white horse arrived on her doorstep a few days later, Stevie was restless and exhausted. Alone at the apartment, she ravenously tore open the package, carefully carved herself a fat line, and snorted it. Then she did it again. And again. This shit was good. She had been out of coke for a few days. She needed to feel like herself again, and she didn’t care if her boyfriend walked in or if her mom suddenly called because it was finally here. Her body was buzzing. She felt euphoric. She wanted to dance.

Just one more line, and I’m good to go. Stevie inhaled one more sweet, sweet line and fell back onto the bed.

Before her body hit the mattress...she was already dead.

On this episode: buying drugs on the Internet, the birth of the Dread Pirate Roberts, and the notorious Silk Road. I’m Keith Korneluk, and this is Modem Mischief.

INTRODUCTION 

You’re listening to Modem Mischief. In this series, we explore the darkest reaches of the Internet. We’ll also show you places you won’t find on Google and what goes on down there. Today’s story is in two parts. This is the story of The Silk Road.

ACT 1

It was in the evening of August 2013 when Ross Ulbricht peered out of the tightly closed blinds from his third-floor studio apartment and looked down at the busy street. He swore someone had followed him home from the bar around the corner, but everything looked like it usually did. People were commuting home from work, hopping on and off the bus. A group of teenagers were smoking on the corner. Everything was as it usually was. Nothing to be afraid of.

But Ross had been feeling on edge and jumpy lately. He was suspicious of everyone. On the surface, Ross Ulbricht was a skinny recluse. But in a dark corner of the web, unreachable by the average Internet user, Ross was a drug kingpin. 

People were lying to him, stealing from him, hunting him as he lived and breathed. One tiny mistake or misstep and everything he had worked so hard for would vanish. With those thoughts bouncing around his brain, his anxiety was beginning to mount. He could feel himself losing his mind, losing himself.

Despite having millions of fans online and millions of dollars in his Bitcoin wallet, he had never felt more alone. That’s because, in the real world, Ross mainly was alone. No one could know who he was, who he really was, or what he did for a living. Letting it slip would mean putting himself in a ton of danger. And probably in jail.

So, it was easier for him to keep to himself.

Ross wasn’t always paranoid and depressed. He used to be carefree. Hell, he was even an Eagle Scout.

While completing his master’s degree at Penn State, Ross started smoking weed and doing mushrooms. Being high made him feel more interesting, relaxed, and funnier. Mushrooms helped him get over his depression, and soon he craved going out into the woods to trip, naked and surrounded by nature. At the mention of politics or the war on drugs, Ross became the chattiest person in the room, unable to keep from talking over everyone about his Libertarian views.

After graduating, he had intended to marry his college girlfriend, get a good job, and raise a family. But as he was down on one knee proposing to his then-girlfriend, she casually admitted she had cheated on him...repeatedly. 

If his love life sucked, so did his job prospects. He tried day trading, being a landlord and started a video game company. But he failed at all of it. I might be a loser now, but I refuse to stay that way.

 He wanted to be an entrepreneur like his dad, so he decided to start his own business.

But what sort of business could he start? He liked Physics. Debating. Libertarianism. None of those were businesses, though.

What was something he was passionate about? Besides drugs and Libertarianism, nothing. Ross would love to work with drugs though, but he didn’t have the credentials and wasn’t trying to spend another ten years in school getting them. He tried to let the idea go but kept coming back to drugs. 

Manic, Ross stayed up for days on end planning and growing the idea taking shape in his head; an online drug marketplace. He had spent the last two years at Penn sharpening his libertarian views and was passionate about combating the war on drugs. But Ross’s beliefs didn’t seem to have a place in polite society. 

 Incredibly brainy but not super tech-savvy, Ross began hitting message boards to learn about and research possible platforms for his marketplace. The next few months flew by, with Ross hardly leaving his room. Computer monitors replaced his childhood trophies, and takeout containers began stacking up in corners of his bedroom. Ross’s vision became cemented in his mind, and before long, he knew exactly what he wanted. He was ready to start building. With that, Ross posted a help wanted ad on one of his message boards, and within a week, hired a hacker to help him build the site.

The marketplace was designed to be an outpost where people could buy and sell whatever they wanted. Mostly, though, it would be for selling drugs. There would also be message boards where Ross would spend much of his time and, of course...porn. Because what’s a website without porn of some kind? The key was that Ross wanted everything to be anonymous, so Ross had the site set up on the dark web. This section of the internet isn’t your average .com kind of place. The domain ends in .onion and is the part of the internet that isn’t accessible by search engines like Google. The site was run through a special network called Tor that hides user’s information by encrypting it and then bouncing the signal all over the world.

To Ross, the site was a work of art. Sure, some people would call the white page and green lettering bland, but Ross called it crisp. Once users created their anonymous profiles, and picked their handles, they were free to explore the site. On the left-hand side, there were lists of different drugs: cannabis, dissociatives, uppers and downers, to name a few. Clicking on a category would list all the sellers, pictures of their products, and reviews. Past buyers would be able to leave ratings, and potential buyers could pose questions, all designed to make the site transparent despite its anonymity. Ross was in love with his creation but still had one problem: payment.

Paying with a credit card or bank account meant the police could link drug sales directly to customer’s names and addresses even though the site itself was secure. Ross needed the site to be completely, 100% anonymous, all the way down to the financial transaction. It was the only way people would risk buying anything from the site, and without it, there would be no business. It’s not like customers could pay in cash.

He needed something both anonymous and encrypted so users wouldn’t have to worry about getting busted by the cops, but nothing that sophisticated seemed to exist…yet.

It was a Wednesday afternoon when Ross was seated on the edge of his small childhood bed. An announcement popped up on an underground site that proclaimed the arrival of something called Bitcoin. A quick search about Bitcoin and Ross found out that it’s an anonymous cryptocurrency unregulated by the government and untraceable by law enforcement.

Jackpot.

It didn’t take Ross long to get his site to accept Bitcoin as its primary form of payment, and by the end of 2010, it was ready for the public. But what would he call it? This was his brainchild after all.

He thought for a moment about what he wanted the site to be. Like the original trade routes coming out of Asia, his marketplace would allow users to trade drugs and other goods and open up people to new beliefs. He decided to name his creation in honor of the cultural pipeline that allowed Asia to grow into an economic powerhouse that changed the world. He wanted his site to have the same reach and cultural impact. 

Ross typed The Silk Road into the empty space at the top of the site and hit ‘publish.’ Now, he was ready.

The Silk Road was officially live at the end of January 2011. But after a month of business, not a single person visited the website. Ross went back to his faithful anonymous message boards once again. This time he wasn’t coming to get anything; he started actively promoting the Silk Road.

As the visitors to The Silk Road started to climb, so did his excitement. Then finally, it happened: he made his first sale. An eighth of weed. Not much, but a start.

Ross needed more. What he needed was a bit of media attention, he reasoned. That would help him get the Silk Road into the stratosphere.

Within a week of blasting every online media outlet, only one person responded, Adrian Chen. Chen worked for the online magazine Gawker. If you’re unfamiliar with Gawker, it’s the site that published the Hulk Hogan sex tape and got sued into oblivion for it. But first, Gawker needed to know; could users really get illegal drugs shipped from the site to their home without having to worry about police breaking down their door? They tested it out for themselves.

The answer was a resounding; yes. 

Gawker posted their exclusive article in June of 2011, complete with over twenty pictures of weed, acid, LSD, coke, fentanyl, Xanax, and oxycodone, all captured from the Silk Road postings. The article dubbed the Silk Road the amazon.com of drugs, calling it stupidly simple to access. It even gave users a step-by-step guide for accessing the darknet site. The exclusive interview about the Silk Road and its creator caused whispers among the public, and by the end of June, the Silk Road was gaining 20,000 new users every day.

People came for the drugs, of course, but they stayed because of the culture the site’s creator was facilitating. As the site began growing in popularity, Ross stepped away from selling small amounts of weed to simply managing the Silk Road. He responded to every question, customer service request and kept the code up to date.

As Ross became comfortable in his new role as CEO, he began posting on the message boards to encourage interaction among the site’s users. Ross and his followers saw the site as the beginning of a new era for human rights and freedom. Ross had been posting under the handle ‘Silk Road Admin,’ but he felt like it was important to give himself a proper handle with his increasing engagement with the community. One that accurately depicted Ross and marked him as the fearless leader in charge. 

The name for himself was almost as important as the name for the site itself. Ross was the Silk Road, after all. He was the market, the person, the enterprise, the captain of the ship and needed a name that could encompass all that. He announced his name with a short video clip from the cult classic novel and movie, The Princess Bride.

SFX: Clip about DPR from The Princess Bride

The name he chose was Dread Pirate Roberts. Dread Pirate Roberts, who began going by the acronym DPR, was the name for noble criminals in the movie. Ross made it very clear how he viewed himself and the image he hoped to project to the world.

 With the overnight growth of the site, everyone brought their own opinions about the Silk Road with them. Sellers wanted the site to remain focused on drugs, libertarians wanted to bring more politics to the site, and a third group called for more anarchy. If you sell drugs and guns, why not also sell kidneys and cadavers?

Just because the Silk Road was outside the confines of the law didn’t mean the site was lawless. All marketplaces had rules and restrictions, and the rules Ross created for the site were intended to be guiding principles. They were:

1. Treat others the way you want to be treated.

2. Mind your own business.

And

3. Don’t do anything to hurt or scam anyone else.

Ross also explicitly stated on the homepage that child porn, stolen goods, and assassinations weren’t tolerated on the site. The Dread Pirate Roberts didn’t want to go down in the books as a mob boss or a drug dealer. He wanted it clear that he was a legitimate businessman. Like Mark Zuckerberg. You know, a real upstanding guy.

By the end of 2011, Ross increased his cut of each transaction from 3% to 12%. It wasn't about the money. Ross was the one who created the site, and he should get more of the profit; it was just good business. By March of 2012, the Silk Road was generating $600,000 in Bitcoin per week, and Ross finally found the success that had been alluding him for most of his young life.

The Silk Road quickly grew a cult-like following on the darknet. The site, the success, the encryption security, all of it. It all seemed too good to be true. And it made Ross feel utterly untouchable.

But as with most things that seem too good to be true, people eventually find out that they are, and the Silk Road legacy may tell a different story than the one Ross was selling. 

ACT 2

It was a Friday night at the University of Denver in 2011. A recruit party at one of the fraternity houses was just getting underway. Drinks were flowing and hormones were overflowing. Bryan was a senior in the frat, which meant he got to dick around with the other guys and get as hammered all night as he pleased. The party was well underway by the time Jake rolled in sometime after midnight. Jake was Bryan’s ‘little’ in the frat and best friend.

Jake waved a small baggie of white powder in front of Bryan’s face. “Are you ready to party for real?” Jake asked Bryan, who was already substantially fucked up.

“Oh yeah. Totally down,” Bryan said. Bryan had done coke with Jake a few times before at parties like this one. It made him funnier and had even helped him score with a few of the Delta Sigma girls.

 Upstairs in his room, Jake cut up the powder with a credit card. “Have you ever done Brown Sugar before?” he asked Bryan.

Brown Sugar? You mean Heroin? Bryan shook his head no. The thought of trying that had never really crossed his mind.

“You’ll like it, trust me” Jake said, rolling up a dollar bill into a tight spiral, “it’s good shit.” Jake inhaled through the bill, snorting a small line off his dresser. He handed Bryan the rolled-up dollar bill and leaned back on the bed. Jake drifted off into a haze.

Bryan had Jake’s drugs before, and they were always legit. Besides, Jake wouldn’t give him anything he couldn’t handle. Bryan put the bill into his nose, and finished off the second line Jake made on the dresser. Bryan slumped back into the desk chair and looked up at the ceiling with his nostril burning so badly it made his eyes water. For a panicked moment, Bryan worried the burning wasn’t going to go away, and then, he started to giggle. Then, every cell in his body melted into a pure bliss he had never felt before.

What had he been upset about? It didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did.

After Bryan sobered up the next day, the weight of what he did began to sink in. He swore Jake to absolute secrecy; he couldn’t tell anyone what Bryan did. Fucking heroin? What had he been thinking? He knew better. People die from heroin every day. He didn’t want to end up like Tommy at the end of Trainspotting.

What made it all worse, though, was that Bryan had liked the drug… a lot. He liked heroin more than weed or coke and, despite being a smart kid, he couldn’t fight off the singing in his brain that constantly called for more of it.

When he graduated college in 2012, Bryan moved across the country for a new job with a good financial firm in Boston. He had managed to keep his nose clean (literally) since college, but it was a battle he had to fight every day. Then, one freezing January day in 2013, his coworker mentioned The Silk Road in the break room.

 “Have you heard of it?” Collin asked, eyes both wide and weary.

 Bryan shook his head. He hadn’t. But when he got home that night, a quick google search told him everything he needed to know. He could get drugs delivered, and it would be anonymous. There was no way he could order drugs from the Internet, he told himself. But it’s anonymous, he thought; no one has to know.

It didn’t take long for Bryan to cave. The anonymity and convenience of the Silk Road were no match for him. Three days later, after a tubing trip with friends, Bryan returned home to find a long envelope left in his mailbox. No shit? It actually came.

Once he got inside his apartment, Bry opened the package to find a chocolate bar inside. Opening the candy bar revealed a small baggie of powder that was sealed inside.

Excitement jolted his body, and the craving suddenly overwhelmed him. His fingers started shaking as he wiped away bits of chocolate. It looked exactly like he remembered; an innocuous powder. His desire overwhelmed him. He didn’t buy it to stare at it, after all. Dumping some out on his dresser counter, Bryan vowed that this would be the last time. He would never do H again after this. He grabbed a credit card out of his wallet, he began cutting up the heroin the same way he remembered watching Jake do it. What Bryan didn’t remember was how much he should be doing. A big line? A small line? How did Jake measure?

He started with a small bump through the dollar bill, and his body felt weightless and wispy. Hmm. Iit was nice, but it wasn’t the same pure bliss he had experienced before. Another small line should do it. Bry dumped out the rest of the baggie, the room swayed around him with every movement. His limbs were loose and heavy as he snorted what was left in the bag.

A moment later, that familiar euphoria set in. Bryan had almost forgotten how fucking great the shit was. The real world melted as he made himself comfortable on his apartment floor. Until the corners of his vision started going dark.

His heart began racing, and it felt like someone had their bare hand wrapped around his heart, squeezing it. No, Bryan tried to yell, but he couldn’t hear himself. Couldn’t move. Each heartbeat felt like it echoed through his body and was moving much faster than it should. He noticed it was getting hard for him to breathe. Were his lungs filling up with air? He couldn’t tell anymore. He hardly remembered he had lungs. The darkness clouded more and more of his vision until…

Bryan died that Friday night around 9:30 pm. Police examined the body to find that heroin wasn’t the only drug in his system. He also had Adderall in his system. A deadly combination.

In his last semester of college, Bryan had been prescribed Adderall to help with his ADD, but like most overachievers, it was really meant to increase his productivity. 

His daily dose of Adderall mixed with the big H made Bryan’s lungs fill up with fluid and impossible for him to breathe. His death was ruled an overdose. Investigators looking into the case quickly ran into dead ends. Bryan’s death remained unsolved, and his family was left confused and heartbroken at the sudden loss of their only son. 

Whispers of overdoses like Bryan’s started to make their way back to The Silk Road. Ross knew that an overdose was possible, but it still annoyed him. People need to know how to handle their shit. The last thing he needed was an OD being connected to The Silk Road. Once that happened, it would make its way to the ears of other Silk Road buyers. It’s not like Ross putting the needles kid’s arms and dollar bills in their noses, but it was all about perception. One bad batch of dope, one too many overdoses, and his loyal customers and, let’s be honest, fans would likely jump ship. Ross would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the attention from his adoring followers. But they wouldn’t be buying more drugs if they were dead. And dead...was bad for business.

Scrolling on the site and contemplating his problem led him to the profile of someone who had been a part of the Silk Road for a long time. He went by the handle DoctorX.

The Doc had been giving out drug advice on the message boards and answering people’s questions about dosing and drug combinations in the forums. What no one on the anonymous site could know was that DoctorX was a board-certified physician out in the real world. The good doctor started helped DPR answer drug-related questions and became a trusted and respected source of information for anyone and everyone who came to the site.

DoctorX was spending hours every day answering questions on the Silk Road for other anonymous users. Everything from “how do I inject with a syringe?” to “what drugs can I mix this with?” DoctorX had all the answers.

DPR offered to pay DoctorX for all his work on the Silk Road, and DoctorX accepted. The more DoctorX and DPR worked together, the more the two started planning the next steps for making Silk Road a better marketplace for drug users. The Doctor wanted Ross to start sending all the drugs sold on the Silk Road to be tested for purity and strength so that buyers can be sure that they know exactly what they are buying and that it’s safe. But that was a logistical nightmare.

For the moment, Ross had convinced himself that he was safe. The overdoses certainly couldn’t be traced back to him. Even if the police somehow managed to connect the overdose to the Silk Road, there was nothing that could tie the Silk Road to Ross Ulbricht. Each aspect of the site was triple encrypted. The code he created was solid, and with the daily security scans he was doing, he would know the second someone got close to hacking into his site. It would give him plenty of time to fight back before it was too late.

Just as Ross was convinced that his enterprise was safe, things were only getting riskier in the real world.

On February 18, 2013, the death of 16-year-old Preston hit the news. After a night at his high school dance, Preston and a few friends had gotten a hotel room. The group of kids all took LSD, and Preston jumped from the second-story balcony. He was in a coma with catastrophic head injuries and died the following day. The other kids in attendance that night told the officers where they got the drugs in no uncertain terms, The Silk Road.

Another tragic overdose followed each gruesome case until they piled up on the desks of law enforcement around the world. Small cities in Australia, bigger cities in England, and small towns in rural Texas were all starting to hear about The Silk Road. Local police could do virtually nothing to combat the drugs that were now being dispersed anonymously into their neighborhoods and communities.

These smaller police stations had one hope to end these horrific deaths: the technology of the American government.

 ACT 3

From the moment Gawker posted their exclusive interview in 2011, the Silk Road and DPR began garnering national media attention.

The Mayor of NYC publicly called on law enforcement to shut the site down as soon as possible. He continued to say that any other response would be grossly neglectful.

US Senator, Chuck Schumer, held a public press conference where he also called for the site to be immediately shut down. He, like many others, was alarmed by the unhindered access to such dangerous and illegal drugs.

Police and politicians around the country heard the governors rallying cry, and they felt the same way. They were prepared to shut the site down that day… if they could.

Law enforcement quickly found out that they couldn’t just shut the site down. To shut the site down, they would need to access the site’s server, which was hidden and protected by triple encryption. The dark net website was virtually untouchable and untraceable, leaving the most powerful law enforcement agencies in the world stumped.

By 2012, the case hadn’t moved an inch. Not one lead, not one suspect. Other than the overdoses attributed to The Silk Road, there wasn’t much in the way of evidence.. With public pressure mounting, the FBI began inviting other agencies to start consulting on the case. One of the other Agents called in to look at the case was Agent Gary Alford from the Internal Revenue Service.

Gary knew he was an outsider in the FBI. The IRS was only called in when the FBI got stumped during big investigations involving lots of cash. Mostly the IRS made the Feds feel like big dummies, but Gary genuinely liked helping out law enforcement. He felt like it was the most meaningful part of his job. A job that Gary was good at. He loved puzzles and was known to follow paper trails and evidence to close his cases methodically. The Silk Road landed on Alford’s desk on a Monday morning, and he immersed himself in it. Alford was only one guy out of fifty who worked the case but felt he could see through the bullshit all the other Agents got caught up in.

When Friday rolled around, Alford couldn’t find a way around Tor or into the darknet site, but he was determined to find a crack in the case. Gary checked his notes and recalled just how random the site seemed to be. It popped up without warning and had taken over the darknet in a manner of months.

But what about before 2011? Alford wondered. The clock on his desk hit five, and he packed it up for the night, but the wheels kept turning. There had to be some mention of the Silk Road somewhere before its big debut; he was sure of it.

It was nearing midnight on Saturday, and Alford couldn’t sleep. Surrounded by darkness in his living room, he opened his laptop and pulled up a search engine. Alford figured that something as complicated and high-tech as the Silk Road wouldn’t be able to materialize overnight. There had to be some sort of internet trail.

Alford began digging through all the online hacker message boards and computer tech websites to see if there were any leads. For the better part of the weekend, that’s where he sat—glued to the screen. The sun began to rise over NYC, but Alford didn’t stop his digging to notice.

On a Bitcoin site, no less. Someone anonymously posted on the message boards about a new anonymous drug site and wanted to see what people thought. The user’s avatar was Altoid. Gary’s heart started pounding. And then, nearly 36 hours later, he found it. The post was made during the first week of January in 2011 before Silk Road had gotten any publicity. Gary’s gut told him that this was something; this was a clue.

How did this user know about the Silk Road before anyone else seemed to? Even if he wasn’t the creator, it would stand to reason that this user knew who the creator may be. Alford clicked on his profile and began scrolling through Altoid’s comments and posts until he stumbled onto another clue.

Altoid created a post back in 2010 on the same platform asking for the help of an experienced programmer. Altoid left his personal email address on the posting for programmers to use to contact him. Rossulbricht01@gmail.com. Alford’s heart began racing. He was definitely onto something here and now; he had an email address and, even better, a name.

On Monday morning, Alford rushed into FBI headquarters, the email address written on a torn piece of notebook paper carefully tucked in his suit’s inner pocket. He punched floor number 13 and had to fight the urge to skip his way into the cybercrime squad room. Alford spoke to the FBI and told him about the search he did over the weekend and the email address he found.

Alford wasn’t sure what sort of reaction he expected to get from the Special Agent in charge, maybe excitement or a hint of approval. This was a lead on their case, after all. But when Gary, flushed and winded, explained the evidence he found and showed it to investigators, Alford was met with skepticism and disapproval.

“Where’d you find it?” The Special Agent asked, looking Alford up and down.

Alford felt the excitement drain out of him with that look. He had only been hired on the case a week ago, and he was already convinced he cracked it. But he should have known the FBI wouldn’t take him seriously. “The uh-,” Gary gulped, his words escaping him. “Just Google, sir,” he finally said.

The FBI Agent stared dubiously at Alford like the interloper he was. The Agent put the paperwork detailing the lead on top of a big stack of papers. The next second, a young agent entered the room and dropped a fresh stack on the Alfords report.

“We’ll run it down with the others, chief,” the Agent told him, patting the tower of paperwork. He then immediately turned his attention back to his desktop computer. Gary was dismissed.

The FBI never got around to running down Alford’s lead, and once again, the case against Dread Pirate Roberts was stalled.

Meanwhile, DPR had a mutiny on his hands.

It was a typical California day, cloudless and desperately sunny, when Ross was at a café just around the corner from his place, catching up on the Silk Road message boards when a chat dinged on his laptop.

 It was a message from a long-time buyer off the site. The user messaged DPR to let him know that one of his sellers had offered the buyer some “off-market items” for a small additional fee. Ross tapped the keyboard furiously, unable to believe his fucking luck.

What off-market items? DPR messaged back, hitting send with a groan. A moment later, his computer dinged again. The buyer sent Ross a screenshot of the message where his seller was trying to off passports, guns with scratched-off serial numbers, credit cards, some bizarre and weirdly specific donkey porn on top of the drugs.

Ross felt his face get hot the longer he stared at the computer. Shoving it away, he jumped up out of his chair and began pacing. He was furious, no, beyond furious. His fists clenched harder. How dare they break his rules? This was his ship. If the sellers couldn’t play by the rules, they then would have to walk the plank.

Ross sat back down and cracked his knuckles before letting his fingers unleash a fury. He thanked the buyer for giving him the heads up and wrote a scathing message to the seller. How dare he try to pull a fast one on the Dread Pirate Roberts? DPR was the king, he saw everything, heard everything, and could end anyone. He had a one-strike policy. Breaking the rules meant that DPR put his profile in cyber jail. The seller wouldn’t be able to make transactions or register on the site again.

Ross finished by deleting and blocking the user’s messages and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. He didn’t care to hear whatever bullshit the guy was going to write back; entertaining him would only be a waste of time. His site was raking in millions of dollars, and the pressure on Ross was mounting. He wasn’t keeping up with all the message boards, keeping an eye on his sellers, and continuing to update his code and the site’s security measures. He was feeling the pressure to be and do it all.

A lightbulb went off in Ross’s brain. He would hire some of the other loyal users on the site like he did with DoctorX. Ones who had been there from the start that he knew were trustworthy. Leaning over his keyboard, he drafted a message to Variety Jones, asking him to come on board as a manager and mentor for the Silk Road, and Varsity Jones excitedly agreed.

This was it, Ross thought. All he had to do was delegate some of the work, and then he would be able to stay on top of his duties. Then, he could relax a little bit. Maybe he could finally sleep again. Ross went on to hire a few more people loyal to the Silk Road site. Scout, to help moderate the message boards. Inigo, to respond to customer service questions or complaints. And ChronicPain, to help dole out some narcotics advice alongside DoctorX, who was working up to eight hours a day responding to inquiries from the site.

Their little team was small but mighty. Ross was finally able to concentrate on what mattered, keeping Silk Road up, running and anonymous. Ross was more confident than ever that the Silk Road was here to stay. He had finally built his empire.

That didn’t mean, though, that Ross wasn’t feeling the tension rise. Law enforcement was starting to circle like sharks. One toe out of line would mean that everything he had built would come crumbling down. 

He began running daily security checks and updated his code every week. At the end of the day, the success of the Silk Road came down to Ross and Ross alone. Whether or not he could keep the charade running. For now, he was safe, but the future was yet to be decided.

ACT 4

It was a Thursday in January 2013 when Ross got a message from one of his Silk Road employees, Inigo, that there seemed to be a problem. With the message, Ross felt his stomach start sinking.

A problem? Ross asked, What problem?

Ross had been spending night and day working on writing and rewriting code that would help the site accommodate more users and add more forums and platforms that were all just as secure as the main site itself. Ross had been smoking more weed than usual to help him cope with his increasing anxiety and paranoia. While it helped him relax, it sometimes made him slower, which he didn’t like. But he needed all the help he could get.

Between pulling all-nighters to finish up his work and pure anxiety keeping him awake, Ross couldn’t remember the last time he had a decent night of sleep, wearing his patience down to nothing and rocketing his stress to new heights.

His computer dinged when Inigo sent him another message, and his eyes quickly scanned the computer.

Ross immediately felt his blood boil, and the rage grow in his stomach. Someone had stolen over $300,000 from him. According to Inigo, someone on the Silk Road team had taken the money straight out of the website’s private account. Ross had to get up from the computer before he punched a hole through it and took a hit of a half-smoked joint sitting in an ashtray piled high with roaches.

Ross had never been so mad in his life. He took a hit from the joint, his clenched fists still shaking. Someone thought they could steal his money? Stealing from him was serious fucking business. He wasn’t a small-time kid anymore, and this wasn’t a small-time business. What almost angered him more was that the person clearly thought that they could get away with it. As if Ross wouldn’t notice? He was only running a multi-million dollar international drug trafficking ring; he found out fucking everything. If they thought they could just steal from Dread Pirate Roberts, they had another thing coming.

Ross always knew that he would have to make hard choices along this journey. He was dealing with drugs and drug dealers, after all. Not everyone had loyalty to him. Choices would have to be for the good of the Silk Road. Choices that would test the loyalty of his employees and followers. Ross sat back down to write his reply.

Find out who the fuck took it, Ross typed back to Inigo; we need to make them pay. 

COMING UP

On the next episode of Modem Mischief: Part Two of The Silk Road, which is available right now wherever you get your podcasts.