Feds Arrest Alleged ‘Silk Road 2’ Admin, Seize Servers
Summary: Federal prosecutors in New York charged 26-year-old San Francisco resident Blake Benthall, known online as "Defcon," with running the Silk Road 2.0 drug marketplace, and U.S. and European authorities seized the servers hosting it. Prosecutors said the site, operating on the Tor network since November 2013, was generating at least roughly $8 million in monthly sales with about 150,000 active users as of September 2014, and Benthall was arrested after a Homeland Security undercover agent gained moderator access to the site's forum in October 2013 and investigators traced the server to his personal email address, blake@benthall.net.
What you should know: The operation that took down Silk Road 2.0 was part of a wider U.K. National Crime Agency action against more than 400 dark web sites, and Benthall faces charges carrying a maximum of life in prison for narcotics trafficking conspiracy alone.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
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