The Daily Dot reports a bizarre twist in the Ross Ulbricht trial, which had officially come to an end with a conviction but whose echoes continue to reverberate throughout the world of the dark net.
Some interesting revelations were gleaned after reporters were apparently able to raid Dread Pirate Roberts' (DPR) e-mail account. They gained access after discovering usernames and passwords in journal passages which prosecutors failed to redact.
Among the revelations was DPR's desperate attempt to get inside info on what was a possible police investigation into Silk Road. Efforts were intensified after the arrests of several Silk Road key players in September 2013, about a month before Ulbricht's arrest.
DPR reportedly paid $100,000 to "french maid" in order to find out who in the Department of Homeland Security (DHLS) was investigating. "french maid claims that mark karpeles has given my name to DHLS. I offered him $100k for the name,” wrote DPR in a journal entry. Four days later, he recorded in his journal that french maid "hasn’t replied in 4 days."
DPR believed that Karpeles was helping authorities investigate Silk Road, but never received a response from him. Earlier in the trial, Karpeles strongly denied any connection to Silk Road.
Most of the content from DPR's attempts to get information had been redacted by the prosecution.
Another piece sheds some light on an "alpacino", whom DPR apparently trusted with these matters and was paid $500 per week. Following the aforementioned September arrests, DPR wrote, "Contacted alpacino to confirm."
