DEA agent charged with Silk Road fraud had 'go bag,' crafted escape plan for Dread Pirate Roberts

If you spend all your time studying criminals, you tend to learn a thing or two about being a criminal.

This week, the Justice Department chargedtwo federal agents with fraud for enriching themselves while conducting an investigation of the online drug marketplace Silk Road. Prosecutors filed a motion in Maryland Thursday to justify the detention of one of them, Carl Mark Force IV, a DEA agent of 15 years, claiming that he is a flight risk. When he was arrested at home in Baltimore Friday, he had "what could only be described as a 'go bag' containing an unlicensed and fully loaded 9mm Taurus handgun, extra ammunition, his passport, and $5,000 of blank money orders, which could be converted into cash at any time." Force was apparently ready for a raid, or a zombie attack. There were four other handguns "positioned throughout the house in easily accessible locations," 650 rounds of ammunition, and an unloaded shotgun.

Force, 46, is married and has three minor children. Despite the nuclear family bonds, the government is worried that he could disappear if not kept under lock and key. And if he did, he would be hard to track down, say prosecutors, because he is a long time DEA Special Agent "intimately familiar with the methods the government uses to conduct physical and electronic surveillance and to trace financial assets." Unfortunately for Force, that knowledge was not extensive enough to evade the charges currently brought against him; one of the Bitcoin exchanges he used, Bitstamp in Slovenia, reported his activity to authorities as suspicious, which led to the investigation into his activities, according to the government's initial complaint.

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Comments


[87 Points] None:

[removed]


[27 Points] pinkpanther227:

I wonder which bitcoin operator is refereed to here? Could it be btc-e. This provides some evidence about peoples speculation.

Apparently, the government hasn’t been able to track down all of Force’s money. According to the motion, Force, who made a $150,000 annual salary with the DEA, wired “approximately $235,000 to an account in Panama, which was subsequently transferred to a digital currency exchange company believed to be operating out of Eastern Europe and/or the former Soviet Union.” The government doesn’t name the exchange but says it’s known to be “noncompliant with U.S. laws and unresponsive to legal process from the U.S. authorities.”


[18 Points] GIEV_RP_PLZ:

Blank money orders opposed to cash? Anyone know why?


[10 Points] None:

"one of the Bitcoin exchanges he used, Bitstamp in Slovenia, reported his activity to authorities as suspicious, which led to the investigation into his activities, according to the government’s initial complaint."

poetry.


[10 Points] Vendor_BBMC:

I was only selling on the first Silk Road for a couple of months before the end, but this explains some very strange happenings in the week before the site was taken down.

Silk Road had an auto withdraw feature, so that as customers released the escrow, you could specify three bitcoin addresses of your own that the money would be sent to.

I noticed that customers were finalizing, but no money was arriving in my bitcoin wallets. I checked the settings, and the three wallet addresses were totally different!

I thought I was going nuts, so I disabled auto withdraw. Next time I logged in, it was back on!

The time after that, I spent about an hour writing a product listing. When I tried to save it, there was a screen full of police badges!

I was surprised at the time that the authorities would risk blowing the last few days of the investigation just to get a few bitcoins.

I guess it was this bad cop.

Ross never stole drug money, and that simple auto-withdrawal feature tells me that he had no intention of doing so.

A few months later, I hated how Silk Road 2 looked and worked almost exactly the same. Like having to go back and work in the same office. The auto withdraw and the bitcoin price hedging features were the only ones missing, until Defcon decided he couldnt trust himself to run an escrow.


[10 Points] hereforareason123:

"methods the government uses to conduct physical and electronic surveillance and to trace financial assets"

What are those methods


[5 Points] CumberlandGap:

Ehh I doubt he was getting ready to flee, he won't get that much time and he has a family and shit.


[4 Points] Big_Daddy_Trucknutz:

Apparently I have all the things to make a go bag.


[3 Points] None:

[deleted]


[3 Points] thascarecro:

The Road....Coming Summer 2016.


[2 Points] srr_likeitornot:

Classic.


[2 Points] the_man_in_the_chair:

Government = a gang writ large


[2 Points] illpoet:

wow, I'm still kind of unsure from the full article what he was doing that was dirty, he tried to sell DPR an escape plan? i couldn't tell if that was it or if his escape plan thing was part of the DEA sting. I bet he does zero jailtime, while dpr rots for the rest of his life.


[2 Points] rulinus:

Are you guys honestly surprised?

Hypocrisy is the foundation of these assholes.


[1 Points] None:

[deleted]


[1 Points] NoodleStaff:

Government backed mafia/gang.


[1 Points] Vegetano:

ITS ALL A CONSPIRANCY


[1 Points] PWEI:

Fucking dick. Fuck this asshole.


[1 Points] Insipid_Pedantry:

If he had a go bag why didn't he get a chance to use it?


[1 Points] Luksislo:

Well I'm from Slovenia

funny thing


[1 Points] OptionalAccountant:

NICE! They gave us the escape plan incase any of use ever need to "disappear to algeria"! And it seems totally doable!


[-15 Points] dicklover69420:

whos the liberal whiney cunt who wrote this article?

so many gunz and ammoz errywhere its horrible