During an operation on Oct 2nd, the FBI arrested William Ross Ulbricht, an American 29-year-old who has operated under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts” (DPR). Ulbricht is accused of operating illegal market forum and Silk Road, where according to security agencies there were 13,000 illegal items, including hard drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin, counterfeit cash, forged documents, hackers and firearm and ammunition.

The Silk Road, the web’s largest drug market in the world, was finally closed by federal agents in the United States after two years in operation. But if everyone knew since 2011 that the Silk Road was a place where drugs were freely traded, why the FBI took so long to get shut down their operations? To answer this question, Abijah Christos from Drugabuse.com has created an infographic on the rise and fall of Silk Road and how FBI made whole operation.

The rise

Ross William Ulbricht, the “Dread Pirate Roberts”, is a walking contradiction. The government says it raised about $80 million with the Silk Road, but lived in a household of a room in San Francisco, shared with two other people, paying a rent of $1,000 per month. His profile on LinkedIn talks about ending violence and use of force, but the FBI states that he came to hire a hitman to kill a member of the Silk Road, which was trying to extort money from him.

The Silk Road was, according to its founder, a site about freedom. Of course, this was the kind of freedom where you could buy LSD, ecstasy, cocaine, heroin and other drugs (legal and illegal). The website page said Silk Road is turn into a force that can challenge the powers that be, and finally give people the option to choose liberty over tyranny.

The DPR also explained on the LinkedIn page about his goal: “Creating an economic simulation to give people a first-hand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systemic use of force.”

Of each transaction made through the site, Roberts took 8-15 percent commission of the value, depending on the volume and size. In the last two and half years, Silk Road had over one million registered users, 30 percent of which were US citizen and the site received about 60,000 daily visits. Silk Road had grossed over $80 million to Ulbricht, and generated just over one billion dollars in sales and 9.5 million Bitcoin exchange.

The fall

Because it was so difficult to relate drug trafficking directly to the site, the FBI joined forces with the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and Homeland Security Investigations for further investigating the Dread Pirate and the biggest sellers on the site.

It was not an easy task. Initially, officers were unable to trace the money to Roberts and even find the physical location of the Silk Road, which also prevented him from being overthrown servers.

As there was no digital evidence, FBI had to appeal to less technological means: turning little by little in time to find the first person who had mentioned the Silk Road on the internet. Silk Road was mentioned by a user called “Altoid” on a forum for magic mushroom users. It was again mentioned by the same user on Bitcoin Talk forum, recommending it and posting a link. The post said to contact ‘rossulbricht@gmail.com.’ The post directing readers to the site silkroad420.wordpress.com, where they had instructions to access the real Silk Road.

“I came across this website called Silk Road. I’m thinking of buying off it…Let me know what you think,” Altoid said in the forum.

FBI then targeted Silk Road using undercover officers to purchase drugs. Around April 2012, the undercover agent in Maryland started communicating with Roberts, claiming to be a drug smuggler. In late January 2013, DPR messaged the agent to arrange a hitman to beat someone who had stolen funds from Silk Road users. To gain confidence, the agent sent staged photo proof of the person being tortured.

DPR then started negotiating more with the agent to kill a user “FriendlyChemist” who threatened to reveal thousands of identities of people using Silk Road unless he was paid $500,000. The FBI could then track the physical location of the servers Silk Road. The agency does not disclose exactly how it was done, but apparently they managed to hack the site just enough to get an IP and a phone.

With all the evidence at hand, the agents finally managed to arrest Ulbritch in a public library and close the Silk Road. But the controversy still lives. Other “Dread Pirates” will continue to exist in the internet and we have seen the emergence of Silk Road 2.0, which raises the discussion again about privacy on the network.