5 ms·

That's pretty riveting reading. I suspect HNers will be inclined to pit several technical nits with the affiant, which might distract from the murder-for-hire

by patio11 13y ago

That's pretty riveting reading. I suspect HNers will be inclined to pit several technical nits with the affiant, which might distract from the murder-for-hire plot described in lurid detail therein. (Alice claims to owe money to Bob, who Alice represents as a drug dealer. Alice threatens to expose SR users unless DPR pays Alice's debt with Bob. DPR asks to speak to Bob. Bob messages DPR. DPR attempts to recruit Bob to be a drug dealer on SR and, separately, asks if Bob can arrange for the murder of Alice. Bob quotes a price, which DPR says is twice the last price that DPR has arranged a murder at. DPR eventually agrees to the price, pays, and instructs Bob to take a photograph of the corpse with a random alphanumeric string in the frame, to ascertain that the photograph was indeed produced after the request. Bob reports that the murder is complete and sends the photograph, which DPR accepts as genuine. The affiant believes the likely conclusion -- that Alice and Bob are the same person and that DPR has been successfully extorted to the tune of $150,000 or so.)

mdisraeli 13y ago
You make a good case there - the fact that Canadian investigations drew a blank definitely seemed strange!
MichaelGG 13y ago
DPR's responses to the murder are silly and obviously load him up on charges he doesn't need. But putting murder charge risks side, it's not a terrible negotiation tactic is it? The original guy wanted $500K, and DPR paid significantly less, while perhaps making it seem like he'd go to any lengths to stop someone.
- patio11 13y ago
  In this scenario, the extortionist and the drug dealer are the same party. The goal of the scam isn't extort $500k. That number is as real as my uncle's Nigerian inheritance. The goal is to extort the mark of $150k, and make him a) maximally disinclined to attempt to tell about the scam (by making him complicit in a "murder", much like 419 scammers generally try to make the marks complicit in defrauding Nigeria) and b) give the scammers the opportunity to come after him again, in the future. (One possible scenario: the "hitman" "hired" by the "drug dealer" for the "murder" attempts to shake down DPR in the future, threatening to expose his involvement in the murder unless he is paid off. The hitman is still the drug dealer is still the extortionist.) The game theory of scam artists is really simple: your expected probability of scam N+1 working goes way the heck up if you've successfully worked that mark in scam N. That's why you can literally find people selling lists of folks who've fallen for 419 scams.
  - MichaelGG 13y ago
    I'm saying from DPR's point, was it that bad of a move? Face total failure or $500K payment (with no guarantee of not getting hassled later), versus a $150K payment that lasted a while? Edit: To to clear, DPR could have well assumed it was the same party and figured this was one way to negotiate, instead of saying "ok, how about $200K instead of $500K"?
    - pavel_lishin 13y ago
      > I'm saying from DPR's point, was it that bad of a move? I guess it depends on whether you're factoring in the "on trial for attempted murder" angle.
    - scythe 13y ago
      Why would you believe that someone has compromised thousands of your users without evidence? It's the sort of thing you'd naturally expect someone to lie about. Furthermore, if such were the case, it would be egregiously stupid of Ulbricht not to change the way he protects user identities, and there's no indication he did that either. After all, if friendlychemist did in fact have information on thousands of drug dealers, he ought to be able to get a pretty good asking price from the government, so why would he even contact Ulbricht in this scenario?
      - n09n 13y ago
        Does the government normally pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars for that kind of info? If so, I may need to start thinking about a career change...
      - hisabness 13y ago
        Claim says he had info on about 2 dozen drug dealers not thousands, and that he had info on about 5 thousands buyers.
      - dobbsbob 13y ago
        FriendlyChemist was a vendor who somehow had a falling out, and decided to try and extort DPR who probably yanked his account. He said he would release all the information he kept on people he shipped drugs to, for the sole purpose of creating instability and FUD in the market by dropping identities all over the forums. What DPR should have done is had his team of admins hellban the guy everytime he tried to spam the forums with names so he could waste his time however DPR never seemed to give a shit about the forum even though it was his brand being represented there. This is why Max Vision spied on all his buyers/users because if they ever tried to extort him in the same manner he would promptly reveal that he's been inside their systems for months and knew exactly who they were.
- jere 13y ago
  Here's the thing. FC could have received the $150k and then CONTINUED with the extortion. Once he has an irreversible payment, he can expose the lie.... it doesn't matter. He still has user records that are worth extortion money.
nether 13y ago
This article says murders for hire usually cost way less than US$150k, especially for someone unimportant, making an actual "hit" seem unlikely. > The FBI works undercover on an average of 70 to 90 murder-for-hire cases a year. According to bureau press releases, recent quoted fees have ranged from $25,000 to kill a spouse to $600 to kill a girlfriend ... A few years ago, the Australian Institute of Criminology and South Australia's major crime-investigation branch studied 163 attempted and actual contract killings between 1989 and 2002. The average rate received was 12,700 Australian dollars, or about $8,254. The lowest was 380 AUD (about $250), and the highest was 76,000 AUD (about $49,400). http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/02/dirty_deeds_done_dirt_cheap.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...
- mdisraeli 13y ago
  As I understand it, however, there would have been a lot of overheads. DPR talked to middle-men mostly, so all the way down there would be cuts taken. Then translating from BTC to a regular currency would have caused further cuts, and to properly cash that out would have needed more work again. Of course, hitmen could just feel safe cashing out BTC directly, but consistent process is the best way to avoid fuck-ups
nkurz 13y ago
While I have no idea what actually happened, and don't think that anything in the indictment should be accepted as fact, it's still an interesting situation if we assume that DPR knew that Alice and Bob (henceforth AB) were the same person. I don't know that DPR was acting stupidly. Supposing AB had real information that would be harmful to DPR if released, it's in DPR's interest to prevent this release. One major risk is that even if he pays, he is still susceptible to future extortion. His approach sends a message to AB (true or not) that he is a casual killer, and that it would be an unwise risk to attempt this stunt a second time. It also further implicates AB in DPR's crimes: in the same way that DPR will have great trouble explaining in court that he was not actually arranging a murder but deterring an extortionist, it would be unwise to try to argue in court that one accepted money to commit a murder, but is innocent because the murder was not actually performed due to a complicated backstory. Also, the extended negotiation provides DPR more opportunity to discover more information about his adversary --- rather like the 'try to keep them on the line so we can trace the call' trope. It seems likely that if there is any substance to the accusation, that AB is a Silk Road seller and not a third party. Perhaps this dance helps DPR to gain more information so as to take future action against this seller? Or buys time so as to warn others that their buyer information is compromised?
- cityhall 13y ago
  If you accepted money to kill yourself, the onus would be on the prosecutor to prove a crime was committed. A reasonable defense would be that you feared that if you didn't pretend to carry out the murder, the buyer (who knew your identity) would find an actual hitman.
  - MacsHeadroom 13y ago
    A reasonable defence would be not to say anything. There is no evidence that this person who was allegedly killed ever existed in the first place. The Canadian Investigators say that nobody by that name ever existed and that there were no homicides or deaths which they can attach to this alleged hit. You can't commit an impossible crime. I can't murder your sister if you don't have a sister. It's highly likely that both the hitman and the hit were the same FBI informant entrapping DPR.
dbags 13y ago
Here's the other criminal complaint against him: https://ia601904.us.archive.org/1/items/gov.uscourts.mdd.238311/gov.uscourts.mdd.238311.4.0.pdf https://ia601904.us.archive.org/1/items/gov.uscourts.mdd.238... It's shorter, and it has details on a second murder-for-hire plot.
- colkassad 13y ago
  This should be its own post. He allegedly requests an undercover agent to torture and kill someone who worked for him. Must be the first murder detailed in the first complaint.

by patio11 13y ago

mdisraeli 13y ago

You make a good case there - the fact that Canadian investigations drew a blank definitely seemed strange!

MichaelGG 13y ago

DPR's responses to the murder are silly and obviously load him up on charges he doesn't need. But putting murder charge risks side, it's not a terrible negotiation tactic is it? The original guy wanted $500K, and DPR paid significantly less, while perhaps making it seem like he'd go to any lengths to stop someone.

patio11 13y ago
In this scenario, the extortionist and the drug dealer are the same party. The goal of the scam isn't extort $500k. That number is as real as my uncle's Nigerian inheritance. The goal is to extort the mark of $150k, and make him a) maximally disinclined to attempt to tell about the scam (by making him complicit in a "murder", much like 419 scammers generally try to make the marks complicit in defrauding Nigeria) and b) give the scammers the opportunity to come after him again, in the future. (One possible scenario: the "hitman" "hired" by the "drug dealer" for the "murder" attempts to shake down DPR in the future, threatening to expose his involvement in the murder unless he is paid off. The hitman is still the drug dealer is still the extortionist.) The game theory of scam artists is really simple: your expected probability of scam N+1 working goes way the heck up if you've successfully worked that mark in scam N. That's why you can literally find people selling lists of folks who've fallen for 419 scams.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  I'm saying from DPR's point, was it that bad of a move? Face total failure or $500K payment (with no guarantee of not getting hassled later), versus a $150K payment that lasted a while? Edit: To to clear, DPR could have well assumed it was the same party and figured this was one way to negotiate, instead of saying "ok, how about $200K instead of $500K"?
  - pavel_lishin 13y ago
    > I'm saying from DPR's point, was it that bad of a move? I guess it depends on whether you're factoring in the "on trial for attempted murder" angle.
  - scythe 13y ago
    Why would you believe that someone has compromised thousands of your users without evidence? It's the sort of thing you'd naturally expect someone to lie about. Furthermore, if such were the case, it would be egregiously stupid of Ulbricht not to change the way he protects user identities, and there's no indication he did that either. After all, if friendlychemist did in fact have information on thousands of drug dealers, he ought to be able to get a pretty good asking price from the government, so why would he even contact Ulbricht in this scenario?
    - n09n 13y ago
      Does the government normally pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars for that kind of info? If so, I may need to start thinking about a career change...
    - hisabness 13y ago
      Claim says he had info on about 2 dozen drug dealers not thousands, and that he had info on about 5 thousands buyers.
    - dobbsbob 13y ago
      FriendlyChemist was a vendor who somehow had a falling out, and decided to try and extort DPR who probably yanked his account. He said he would release all the information he kept on people he shipped drugs to, for the sole purpose of creating instability and FUD in the market by dropping identities all over the forums. What DPR should have done is had his team of admins hellban the guy everytime he tried to spam the forums with names so he could waste his time however DPR never seemed to give a shit about the forum even though it was his brand being represented there. This is why Max Vision spied on all his buyers/users because if they ever tried to extort him in the same manner he would promptly reveal that he's been inside their systems for months and knew exactly who they were.
jere 13y ago
Here's the thing. FC could have received the $150k and then CONTINUED with the extortion. Once he has an irreversible payment, he can expose the lie.... it doesn't matter. He still has user records that are worth extortion money.

nether 13y ago

This article says murders for hire usually cost way less than US$150k, especially for someone unimportant, making an actual "hit" seem unlikely. > The FBI works undercover on an average of 70 to 90 murder-for-hire cases a year. According to bureau press releases, recent quoted fees have ranged from $25,000 to kill a spouse to $600 to kill a girlfriend ... A few years ago, the Australian Institute of Criminology and South Australia's major crime-investigation branch studied 163 attempted and actual contract killings between 1989 and 2002. The average rate received was 12,700 Australian dollars, or about $8,254. The lowest was 380 AUD (about $250), and the highest was 76,000 AUD (about $49,400). http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/02/dirty_deeds_done_dirt_cheap.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...

mdisraeli 13y ago
As I understand it, however, there would have been a lot of overheads. DPR talked to middle-men mostly, so all the way down there would be cuts taken. Then translating from BTC to a regular currency would have caused further cuts, and to properly cash that out would have needed more work again. Of course, hitmen could just feel safe cashing out BTC directly, but consistent process is the best way to avoid fuck-ups

nkurz 13y ago

While I have no idea what actually happened, and don't think that anything in the indictment should be accepted as fact, it's still an interesting situation if we assume that DPR knew that Alice and Bob (henceforth AB) were the same person. I don't know that DPR was acting stupidly. Supposing AB had real information that would be harmful to DPR if released, it's in DPR's interest to prevent this release. One major risk is that even if he pays, he is still susceptible to future extortion. His approach sends a message to AB (true or not) that he is a casual killer, and that it would be an unwise risk to attempt this stunt a second time. It also further implicates AB in DPR's crimes: in the same way that DPR will have great trouble explaining in court that he was not actually arranging a murder but deterring an extortionist, it would be unwise to try to argue in court that one accepted money to commit a murder, but is innocent because the murder was not actually performed due to a complicated backstory. Also, the extended negotiation provides DPR more opportunity to discover more information about his adversary --- rather like the 'try to keep them on the line so we can trace the call' trope. It seems likely that if there is any substance to the accusation, that AB is a Silk Road seller and not a third party. Perhaps this dance helps DPR to gain more information so as to take future action against this seller? Or buys time so as to warn others that their buyer information is compromised?

cityhall 13y ago
If you accepted money to kill yourself, the onus would be on the prosecutor to prove a crime was committed. A reasonable defense would be that you feared that if you didn't pretend to carry out the murder, the buyer (who knew your identity) would find an actual hitman.
- MacsHeadroom 13y ago
  A reasonable defence would be not to say anything. There is no evidence that this person who was allegedly killed ever existed in the first place. The Canadian Investigators say that nobody by that name ever existed and that there were no homicides or deaths which they can attach to this alleged hit. You can't commit an impossible crime. I can't murder your sister if you don't have a sister. It's highly likely that both the hitman and the hit were the same FBI informant entrapping DPR.

dbags 13y ago

Here's the other criminal complaint against him: https://ia601904.us.archive.org/1/items/gov.uscourts.mdd.238311/gov.uscourts.mdd.238311.4.0.pdf https://ia601904.us.archive.org/1/items/gov.uscourts.mdd.238... It's shorter, and it has details on a second murder-for-hire plot.

colkassad 13y ago
This should be its own post. He allegedly requests an undercover agent to torture and kill someone who worked for him. Must be the first murder detailed in the first complaint.