The Silk Road was an online black market that evaded law enforcement for years. Ulbricht was responsible for starting and managing the Silk Road website - an underground empire built on illegal drugs, weapons, and other illicit activities. Nick Bilton unravels the double life of Ross Ulbricht, an outwardly unassuming young man who operated online as the notorious Dread Pirate Roberts. IntroductionĪmerican Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road is a riveting journey into the darkest corner of the internet known as the Dark Web, where crime and anonymity reign supreme. It’s great narrative nonfiction, but it’s also just a fascinating tale about a young idealistic person who goes way too far. Through extensive research of trial transcripts, web postings, and interviews with government agents, journalist and author Nick Bolton tells an engrossing story of this outlaw subculture of drug dealers, internet hackers, and bitcoin scammers, and the government’s hunt to identify and capture the Dread Pirate Roberts.Ĭheck out American Kingpin by Nick Bilton and other riveting tales of true crime like it at the Sioux City Public Library.Ĭheck It Out is supported by Avery Brothers.TLDR: I loved this book. Under the moniker of “The Dread Pirate Roberts”, Ross became the Kingpin-going so far as to commission the murders of those who crossed him.
In the two years of its existence, the Silk Road became a $1.2 billion enterprise utilizing the untraceable technologies of TOR and Bitcoin. Ross wanted to make a difference in the world and he believed that creating a web site that could be a free and open marketplace where people from all over the planet could buy anything and everything, he could affect the governments’ resistance towards legalizing drugs and stop violence and oppression in the world. A Physics major at Penn State, Ross embraced the Libertarian ideals of a society free from government control. A former boy scout who was known as being smart and kind, Ross developed a fondness for mind-altering experiences as a teenager. Ross Ulbricht grew up in the suburbs of Texas. Today, I am recommending American Kingpin by Nick Bilton-a compelling work of narrative nonfiction that details the hunt for Ross Ulbricht-the criminal mastermind behind the Silk Road. This dramatic arrest was a result of an often competing, but ultimately coordinated effort from several government departments, including the DEA, The Department of Homeland Security, the IRS, the United States Postal Service, and the FBI’s special cybercrimes unit. In 2013, Ross was arrested by the FBI in a San Francisco library. In 2011, twenty-six year old Ross Ulbricht launched a clandestine website on the Dark Web called the Silk Road.
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