5 ms·

$1.2 million is an infinitesimal slice of the illegal drug market, but if an ordinary startup handled 1.2 million in transactions per month they'd be ecstatic.

$1.2 million is an infinitesimal slice of the illegal drug market, but if an ordinary startup handled 1.2 million in transactions per month they'd be ecstatic. apples and oranges. This is illegal and their take is maybe enough to pay one criminal lawyer for a month.

cageface 14y ago
Criminal lawyers make 1.2 million in a month?
- pjscott 14y ago
  Silk Road's cut of the transactions is a lot less than $1.2 million.
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    $92,000 per month per the study. Not to be sneezed at, but not a gigantic sum.
- OGinparadise 14y ago
  as other said, their cut is under $100K. A decent criminal lawyer will take that in a month and tell you that he needs $2-$3++ million for a drug case. (From Aaron S case we learned that a simple fed case is $1.5 million, on average)
  - roel_v 14y ago
    "A decent criminal lawyer will take that in a month and tell you that he needs $2-$3++ million for a drug case." [citation needed], which is really a passive-aggressive way of saying "bollocks". Well I'm not saying that Pablo Escobar's lawyers didn't bank that much, but really - there are thousands of drug dealers tried every single day, a sizable percentage of that with turnovers way over 100k / month - you're not seriously suggesting their defenses all cost millions? 500 hours (= almost 3 full-time man months!) at 150 USD / hour = 'only' 75k.
    - celticninja 14y ago
      whilst i agree with your overall assessment I do think that if the Silk Road admin(s) was/were identified and arrested it would be far from your usual drug trial and may involve a lot of expert witnesses dealing with Tor, .onion sites, bitcoin and importantly how they could link the defendant with SilkRoad given the anonymity provided by Tor. This would all add to the costs of defnding a client way more than your usual drug bust.
    - DanBC 14y ago
      $150 USD per hour feels very cheap for a criminal defence lawyer for someone charged with such serious offences.

cageface 14y ago

Criminal lawyers make 1.2 million in a month?

pjscott 14y ago
Silk Road's cut of the transactions is a lot less than $1.2 million.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  $92,000 per month per the study. Not to be sneezed at, but not a gigantic sum.
OGinparadise 14y ago
as other said, their cut is under $100K. A decent criminal lawyer will take that in a month and tell you that he needs $2-$3++ million for a drug case. (From Aaron S case we learned that a simple fed case is $1.5 million, on average)
- roel_v 14y ago
  "A decent criminal lawyer will take that in a month and tell you that he needs $2-$3++ million for a drug case." [citation needed], which is really a passive-aggressive way of saying "bollocks". Well I'm not saying that Pablo Escobar's lawyers didn't bank that much, but really - there are thousands of drug dealers tried every single day, a sizable percentage of that with turnovers way over 100k / month - you're not seriously suggesting their defenses all cost millions? 500 hours (= almost 3 full-time man months!) at 150 USD / hour = 'only' 75k.
  - celticninja 14y ago
    whilst i agree with your overall assessment I do think that if the Silk Road admin(s) was/were identified and arrested it would be far from your usual drug trial and may involve a lot of expert witnesses dealing with Tor, .onion sites, bitcoin and importantly how they could link the defendant with SilkRoad given the anonymity provided by Tor. This would all add to the costs of defnding a client way more than your usual drug bust.
  - DanBC 14y ago
    $150 USD per hour feels very cheap for a criminal defence lawyer for someone charged with such serious offences.