Feds: Silk Road accomplice nabbed in Thailand
NEW YORK - Federal prosecutors Friday announced the arrest of a Canadian citizen on charges he was a key accomplice to convicted Silk Road darknet mastermind Ross Ulbricht.
Roger Thomas Clark, 54, was arrested in Thailand Thursday, and is now pending extradition to face U.S. charges of narcotics trafficking conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.
Silk Road was an encrypted online marketplace that from 2011-2013 brought anonymous buyers and sellers together online for millions of dollars worth of transactions in illegal drugs, computer hacking programs, fake identities and other illicit services. The deals were transacted in bitcoins, an electronic form of currency that made tracking the true identities of the buyers and sellers difficult.
A Manhattan federal jury convicted Ulbricht on drug conspiracy and other charges in February after prosecutors produced evidence that he was the secretive entrepreneur who founded Silk Road in Texas and then operated it the sprawling darknet operation under the nom de Net "Dread Pirate Roberts."
Likening Clark to a Mafia ring consigliere or counselor, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the accused accomplice advised Ulbricht "on all aspects of this illegal business, including how to maximize profits and use threats of violence to thwart law enforcement."
"Clark may have thought residing in Thailand would keep him out of reach of U.S authorities, but our international partnerships have proven him wrong," said FBI Assistant Director Diego Rodriguez.
According to a newly unsealed federal court complaint, Clark used the names "Variety Jones," "Cimon" and "Plural of Mongoose" when he worked as a Silk Road administrator and received hundreds of thousands of dollars as payment for his services.
The complaint included excerpts from an electronic journal that was compiled by Ulbricht and introduced by prosecutors at his trial. In it, Ulbricht explained the important role Variety Jones held on Silk Road.
"This was the biggest and strongest willed character I had met through the site thus far," Ulbricht wrote in a 2011 journal entry. "He quickly proved to me that he had value by pointing out a major security hole in the site I was unaware of."
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The following year, Ulbricht wrote that the aide asked him whether he had confessed his scheme and identity to anyone. When Ulbricht told him he'd confided in two people, Variety Jones offered advice.
"VJ asked Ulbricht whether he had seen the move The Princess Bride, and whether he knew the 'history of the Dread Pirate Roberts,' IRS Special Agent Gary Alford wrote in the court complaint.
"VG explained the legend of the character 'Dread Pirate Roberts,' how 'over the years, a new one would take the name, and the old one would retire,'" wrote Alford. "VJ insisted that Ulbricht should change his name on the Silk Road website 'from Admin, to Dread Pirate Roberts' to 'clear your old trail.'"
Prosecutors charged that the advice Variety Jones/Clark gave to Ulbricht also was like that of a more traditional gangster.
In one online exchange, Clark and Ulbricht discussed “track[ing] down” a certain Silk Road employee to ensure that he had not gone “[o]ff the rails,” prosecutors charged. Clark allegedly commented: “[D]ude, we’re criminal drug dealers — what line shouldn’t we cross?”
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Defense lawyers admitted at trial that Ulbricht created Silk Road. However, they argued that he soon transferred control of the site to others, who lured him back to take the fall when federal investigators closed in on the operation. Jurors didn't buy it, convicting him after little more than three hours of deliberations.
Ulbricht is now appealing the sentence of life behind bars that U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest imposed in June.
Prosecutors said Clark could face a maximum term of life imprisonment if convicted on the narcotics conspiracy charge, and 20 years if convicted on the money laundering conspiracy count.