Silk Road Library Capture
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A story about how the FBI captured Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, through clever detective work and a coordinated arrest at a San Francisco library.
"The FBI had an undercover agent become an employee of Silk Road. They noticed whenever Dread Pirate Roberts (Ross) would say he had to log off to do something, it would match Ross's real-world activities. If he said he was going for a walk, they'd see Ross walk out of his house. If he mentioned going to Dominican Republic, they'd see Ross post about being in Dominican Republic on Facebook.
The day he was arrested, he was at the library in Glen Park. The FBI was chatting with him in real-time and wanted to catch him while he was logged in. They had two FBI agents dress as homeless people who staged a fake domestic disturbance behind him. When Ross turned to look at the commotion, one agent tackled him while another grabbed his computer and ran it straight to a van.
They had everything prepared - the outlet, video camera, USB drive. They filmed the dashboard showing they were actively chatting with him, and managed to extract crucial data before the computer could lock. They caught him because earlier he had used the same username on Stack Overflow asking how to build an exchange, and then used that same username to first announce Silk Road, linking it to his real email rossolbright@gmail.com.
Homeland Security was already watching him because he had ordered 18 fake IDs with his picture but different names for different states. All these pieces came together to lead to his arrest."
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.