This is interesting…..from a deleted web page Part 1 of 2
The Seth Rich Investigation
JUSTICE Part 5
Monday, June 25, 2018
The History
November 30th, 2011 — law enforcement agents begin making drug purchases from the Silk Road Market (the name taken from the historical version-HERE), also known as the Amazon of the Dark Web.
April 01, 2012 — Undercover agent based in Maryland poses as a drug dealer and establishes a long term relationship with site owner, Ross Ulbrict, also known as Dread Pirate Roberts. The relationship would last well into 2013 when the Silk Road Market was finally brought down.
October 1st, 2013 — Maryland issues the first indictment against Ross Ulbrict. He is arrested in a San Francisco library and extradited to New York where the majority of the investigation was centered.
October 25, 2013 — a Bitcoin wallet belonging to Ulbrict sees a drop of 36 000 Bitcoins (BTC). With the help of an anonymous FBI source, Forbes breaks the story of Feds seizing 144 000 BTC from Ulbrict’s wallet. (Updated from original article)
February 7th, 2014 — Ross Ulbrict enters a plea of not guilty. Ulbrict’s trial is adjourned until January of 2015.
Additional reading on the Silk Road Market
In February of 2015, Ross Ulbrict is convicted of seven charges including narcotics trafficking conspiracy and money laundering.
It was a simple tip from a reader of the Gawker article on the Silk Road Market to Baltimore DHS which led to…
a multi-agency task force based in Baltimore — dubbed “Marco Polo” in reference to the drug market’s historical namesake — that eventually included investigators from the FBI, DEA, DHS, the IRS, U.S. Postal Inspection, U.S. Secret Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. –Wired Magazine
Baltimore’s role in the take down of the Silk Road Market involved some of the more covert investigative work, quietly taking down insiders and flipping them as informants. Their first target was Jacob Theodore George IV who was recruited approximately six months after the operation began.
After Ulbrict’s capture, Maryland U.S. Attorney, Rod J. Rosenstein announced George’s sentence of six years for conspiracy to distribute narcotics.
Rosenstein recognized his counterparts in New York, Preet Bhaara and Zach Fardon for their parts in the investigation.
The end of the Silk Road market is only the beginning of our story. Although Rosenstein was successful with his role in the take down, he was left with accusations against two Maryland federal agents for using their undercover positions to line their own pockets during the investigation.
Carl Mark Force IV, a 15 year veteran agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency, and Shaun W. Bridges, a computer forensics expert with the Secret Service, faced charges of money theft, laundering, and wire fraud amongst others. The two had operated independent and unbeknownst to each other according to Force’s partner, Joesph Rosati.
Although there are articles documenting the arrests and charges of both men, the plea dealings with Rosenstein are limited and scarce.
Rod Rosenstein was one of only three of 93 Bush appointed U.S. attorney holdovers in Barack Obama’s new administration. The Republican attorney had a stellar record in Maryland, lowering the murder rate and cracking down on the corrupt law enforcement problems plaguing the state.
Rosenstein’s success with Silk Road, along with having one of the only successful *Whitewater prosecutions (conviction of former Arkansas Governor Jim Guy and Clinton associates James and Susan McDougal), were factors in Barack Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder Jr., appointing him to investigate the serious problem of recently leaked intelligence and classified information in D.C.