THELOGICALINDIAN - On January 30 the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York SDNY appear that Roger Clark the declared chief adviser to the Silk Road exchange pleaded accusable to conspiring to administer massive quantities of narcotics Clark contrarily accepted as Variety Jones was a different appearance aural the Silk Road adventure who claimed a rogue affiliate of the FBI was on the run acquisitive him and added darknet bazaar admins and vendors
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Former Silk Road Admin Roger Clark aka ‘Variety Jones’ Pleads Guilty to Narcotics Distribution
SDNY has announced that Roger Clark, who was additionally accepted as “Plural of Mongoose” or “Variety Jones,” pled accusable on Thursday for conspiring to administer adulterous narcotics in accumulation quantities. The law administration columnist absolution addendum that Clark was the chief adviser to the buyer and abettor of the Silk Road marketplace. According to cloister filings, Clark additionally acclimated the online nicknames “Captain Sergeant,” “Plural of Mongoose,” “VJ,” and “Cimon” during his administration with the darknet bazaar (DNM). Clark is declared as the “real mentor” who brash the Silk Road leader, Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR) about “security vulnerabilities in the Silk Road site, abstruse infrastructure, [and] the rules that absolute Silk Road users and vendors. SDNY appear that they accept Clark additionally assisted with hiring programmers in adjustment to advance the all-embracing basement of the DNM. Additionally, the bureau abundant that Clark aggregate intelligence on law enforcement’s efforts to investigate Silk Road.
Before Clark pled accusable and was arrested and alike afore he was extradited to the United States from Thailand, Variety Jones and his added aliases were able-bodied accepted pseudonyms online. When Clark played the role of Variety Jones he allegedly begin cogent aegis vulnerabilities with the Silk Road’s (SR) belvedere and told DPR about the issues.
Allegedly, Clark additionally rewrote the SR website and afflicted the attending of the exchange entirely. Reports say that there are added than “1,400 pages” of babble logs amid DPR and Variety Jones which is 4x the cardinal of chats DPR had with added chief SR admins. Just afore the SR was bedeviled by law enforcement, Variety Jones afflicted his online pseudonym to Cimon. The 56-year old Clark faces 20 years in bastille for his accuse and he is appointed to be bedevilled by an SDNY Judge on May 29, 2024.
A Rogue Federal Agent and the Darknet’s Pirate Treasure
Prior to Clark’s arrest, in September 2015, the declared SR chief adviser wrote the accessible from Thailand application the monicker “Plural of Mongoose.” The column was begin in a DNM appointment alleged Ganja forums and Clark explained he was on the run from all-around law enforcement. After the SR armpit was seized, Clark begin himself on a “nice abandoned bank breadth in Thailand” and anguish up “drinking heavily and active aural the confinement of the beach” confines. In April, almost about the Thai New Year, Clark got a bulletin from an FBI abettor who alleged himself ‘Chrysippus’ or ‘Diamond.’ Clark said that Diamond knew that he was on the run and the abettor had a bind of advice in attention to the accepted cachet of a few specific DNMs. The above SR chief adviser fatigued that Diamond told him about the abatement of Atlantis above-mentioned to the website’s demise.
According to Clark, the FBI abettor was additionally able-bodied affiliated with the two rogue agents Carl Mark Force and Shaun Bridges. Diamond alleged the agents out for how “stupid they were to do annihilation but authority assimilate their ill-gotten gains,” Clark’s Ganja forums column explained. Diamond believed that DPR had a bitcoin wallet that captivated 300,000 BTC and he anticipation Clark could abstract advice on how to access the wallet. He promised Clark he would accumulate him safe and chargeless from authorities if he helped and he told Clark eventually he planned to retire as a federal administrator in a “tax-friendly jurisdiction.”
Silk Road Investigation Shows Prominent Double Agent Manipulation and Poor Ethics by Law Enforcement
Diamond additionally abreast Clark that he was acquisitive absolute DNM admins and vendors and he acquired $4 actor dollars from his “extra-curricular activities.” After these chats, Clark noticed the abatement of the DNM Evolution and he begin out law administration admiral were analytic Thailand for his whereabouts. Clark believed Diamond set him up and Thai badge had told him he had a compensation on his arch for 20,000 Thai bahts. Over a canteen of Sangsom, he larboard the badge with 50,000 bahts and abreast Diamond that his allurement had failed.
After the column was appear in 2015, Clark wasn’t heard from afresh for absolutely some time and he was eventually arrested in Thailand. Police filings accompaniment that Clark was an SR admin amid January 2011 through October 2013 and he fled aloof afore SR was seized. U.S. admiral thanked the Royal Thai Police for their abutment and abetment with acumen Clark. If the adventure Clark told in 2015 holds weight, again it’s accessible added rogue law administration admiral besides Force and Bridges are still at liberty. During an interview with CNBC, Kathryn Haun, a above prosecutor for the Attorney General’s office, explained how the SR analysis was riddled with patterns of bad behavior and bifold agents. The account highlights how the majority of the SR analysis affirmation was based on the base belief of rogue law administration officials. Circumstantial affirmation shows Clark’s account of a perfidious abettor acquisitive darknet markets is acceptable true.
According to Clark’s story, Diamond was planning to blackmail Agora admins too, but the exchange owners bent on and silently shut the bazaar down. Over the aftermost year and a half, DNM markets and associated forums like Dread accept been attacked regularly by broadcast denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Throughout 2019-2020, there accept been at atomic three above DNM avenue scams back the alpha of the abundant DDoS assaults adjoin these markets. Moreover, back 2017, three of the better DNMs created afterwards SR — Alphabay, Hansa, and Dream market – are gone now as well.
What do you anticipate about Roger Clark argumentation accusable to conspiring to administer massive quantities of narcotics? What do you anticipate about Clark’s account he told in 2024 about the rogue federal agents dubbed Diamond? Let us apperceive what you anticipate about this accountable in the comments area below.
Image credits: Shutterstock, Fair Use, Pixabay, Justice.gov, and Wiki Commons.
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