'Silk Road' website called the Amazon, eBay of heroin, cocaine, drug trafficking

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The Silk Road website offers heroin, LSD, ecstasy, and other illegal drugs for sale.
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Posted: 06/10/2011

By: Michael George

TAMPA - You can get anything on the internet nowadays -- cars, homes, and now, black tar heroin.

It’s called Silk Road, the anonymous marketplace.

It’s a website boasting thousands of members that was created in February, according to its administrators. On the main page, they proudly and openly sell LSD, marijuana, ecstasy, and most any other drug you can name.

“He is basically the eBay or the Amazon of the drug-trafficking world,” said Capt. Robert Alfonso, head of the narcotics division of the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office.

Silk Road is a website that allows participants to sell a number of goods, but by far the most popular area is the section pertaining to drugs. The site itself does not do the selling, but it allows a forum for members to sell and purchase various drugs, both prescription and non-prescription. An administrator claims the website is inspired by literature promoting free market/black market ideals.

Just like eBay or Amazon, the website features customer reviews of sellers, with comments like, “Highly professional! Amazing product!” and a few items with seller disclaimers saying their product “may cause illness, coma, and/or death.”

“I’m almost speechless, because to see that a website like this exists is frightening,” said addiction therapist Dan VanBomel.

VanBomel is a recovering addict and an addiction therapist at Turning Point of Tampa. He says Silk Road is a dangerous new concept.

“A drug addict will look for any way to get their addiction fed, and so when you provide an avenue that makes it easier for them, they’re going to abuse it,” VanBomel said.

One of administrators of the website disagrees. He responded to questions submitted on Silk Road’s website by I-Team investigator Michael George. He would not provide his name, the number of people who run the site, or the location of the adminstrators.

The administrator says he believes his website is “satisfying people and enriching their lives.”

Silk Road takes its security seriously. The web address isn’t something obvious, like “silkroad.com.” The address consists of a seemingly random group of letters and numbers. Even if you know the website and type it into your web browser, you won’t get in. To access Silk Road, you need a program on your computer that hides your identity and makes it more difficult for others to trace you or the sites you visit.

Investigator Michael George asked the Silk Road administrator about the addicts that could potentially die because of products sold on the website.

He responded, “I am so sorry if someone you know has been hurt by drugs, but it is my sincere hope that by making drugs available in a safe, secure, and predictable way, that we will eliminate the violence and danger of obtaining and using drugs through traditional methods. We also hope that, by increasing competition for providing drugs in our marketplace, the quality will rise and price will drop, so that addicts can afford the drugs they need and still have money left over to live a normal life, without as much danger of overdose."

“I see that as insanity. It makes absolutely no sense at all. This is what this person will say to justify his behavior, and it’s completely irresponsible,” VanBomel responded.

The DEA wouldn’t confirm to ABC Action News whether or not they’re investigating Silk Road. Captain Robert Alfonso of the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office says the law on websites like Silk Road is still vague. Also, most of the transactions on the website are for small, individual amounts of drugs, rather than large quantities, so the website is only now attracting attention. Captain Alfonso believes even if the website is shut down, there will be copycats.

“It will probably take, for lack of a better word, an act of Congress. There may have to be a law change,” Captain Alfonso said.

VanBomel hopes that Silk Road is shut down as soon as possible. He believes it’s only a matter of time before he starts seeing clients come to Turning Point of Tampa who are getting drugs from Silk Road.

“You cannot possibly offer acid to people and think that’s helpful,” VanBomel said.

Even the administrator of the website admits he’s not sure how long Silk Road will last. In his own words, he says, “it is worth the risk.”

Below is a portion of the statement provided by the administrator of Silk Road in response to questions from I-Team investigator Michael George.

“We appreciate the opportunity to have our voices heard. Thank you for reaching out :)

It is a worthwhile endeavor and extremely fulfilling. Because of the war on drugs, there is a huge gap between what people desire and what they can get. Every transaction on Silk Road reduces that gap, satisfying people and enriching their lives. Our community is amazing as well. They are generally bright, honest and fair people, very understanding, and willing to cooperate with each other. This makes running the site much easier.

Silk Road was launched in early February 2011 after a few months

of development. We had no idea what the response would be like, so we just got something out quickly. Since then, we've done a full redesign and are working to make it more secure and feature rich every day. The idea originated from Schulman's "Alongside Night," along with works by Samuel Edward Konkin III like "New Libertarian Manifesto" and "Agorist Class Theory" and Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged." We are also heavily influenced by the works of Murray Rothbard and other Austrian economists. The Austrians frame the problem: The state is the primary source of violence, oppression, theft and all forms of coercion (e.g. war, taxes, regulation, corruption, monopolies etc.) and therefore is the source of the vast majority of problems in society. The Agorists then come in with a practical solution: Stop funding the state with your tax dollars and direct your productive energies into the black market. With the cryptographic technologies now available, a site like Silk Road just had to be made. I only wish Konkin and Rothbard were alive to see it.

To be honest, it's too early to tell how long Silk Road will last, or if it will get shut down. It's only gone mainstream in the past few days. The other thing is that it's really not that big, with only a couple dozen or so transactions a day of personal use quantity. If it wasn't for all the media attention, I'm sure law enforcement officials would keep an eye on us, but go after higher value targets.”

In response to a question about items that Silk Road would refuse to sell, the administrator responded, “anything meant to harm or defraud, such as stolen credit cards and personal info, hitmen, etc. We also don't allow some listings because of controversy and the attention they could attract including pedophilia, forged documents and counterfeit currency.”

When asked if he was concerned about being arrested, he wrote, “We're extremely concerned. We've had to take on a high level of paranoia and secrecy, because one mistake could cost us our precious freedom. But it is worth the risk.”

UPDATE: The administrator of the Silk Road website cited J. Neil Schulman's 1979 novel "Alongside Night" as the inspiration for the drug-selling website. After our story aired, Schulman contacted us to provide his thoughts on how his book sparked a website selling illegal drugs openly. He says the creators of the Silk Road website seem to be correctly interpreting his work.

"The Silk Road Administrators are doing in real life what the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre does as fictitious characters in Alongside Night, and their reasons for doing so closely parallel the reasons given in my novel by those characters," Schulman wrote.

"Overall, Alongside Night describes the implosion of the United States economy due to the monetizing of unsustainable government debt causing a hyperinflationary crisis. The plot of the novel -- which is an action thriller -- is a window into the causes and effects of these monetary policies, and portrays the response of libertarian "agorists" in isolating and sustaining a "counter-economy" from the inevitable destruction of the above-ground economy. I only have your article to judge how much the founders of Silk Road understand, but what you quoted from them does seem to reflect the views of the agorists portrayed in my novel and the upcoming movie production," Schulman said.