Peter Nash extradited to the United States to face trial over Silk Road website

poledriver

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Peter Nash extradited to the United States to face trial over Silk Road website

A Brisbane man who allegedly helped run the online drug and hacker bazaar Silk Road has been extradited to the United States to face trial.

Peter Phillip Nash, 41, was arrested last December by the Australian Federal Police after he was named in an indictment issued by the US justice department.

He is wanted in the US for conspiracy to engage in narcotics trafficking, computer hacking and money laundering.

If found guilty, he will face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

A spokeswoman for the Attorney-General's Department confirmed Nash had been sent to the US but did not specify when he left or when he would face trial.

Website launched in February 2011, became known as 'eBay for drugs.

Complex masking and encryption software made it difficult to track users

Users allegedly traded in bitcoin - an online currency that hides purchasers' identities

Vendors allegedly would use regular mail to post drugs to buyers

Drugs like heroin, cocaine and synthetic substances allegedly for sale

Alleged founder Ross William Ulbricht allegedly operated site from San Francisco

Ulbricht arrested and site shut down in October 2013

Ulbricht charged with additional offence in February 2014

Ulbricht pleads not guilty on February 7 2014

Trial scheduled for November 2014

Nash was listed in the indictment as the website's primary moderator and was allegedly paid between $US50,000 and $US75,000 a year.

Court documents show that during its more than two-and-a-half years in operation, Silk Road was used by thousands of drug dealers to traffic heroin, cocaine and amphetamines.

Officials last year arrested the alleged mastermind of the website, Ross William Ulbricht, who was said to go by the name Dread Pirate Roberts.

Ulbricht, who is awaiting trial in New York, has denied the charges and also claims he is not Dread Pirate Roberts.

Last year, a message appeared on social media site Reddit claiming Silk Road had reopened weeks after it was shut down by the FBI.

The message was signed "Dread Pirate Roberts" and said Silk Road had implemented "a complete security overhaul" to keep the marketplace out of the reach of authorities.

The site was accessible only through online encryption offered via a service known as Tor.

Federal agents announced in October 2013 that they had shut down the website, which used privacy protecting Tor and Bitcoin digital currency to shield the identities of buyers and sellers.

Authorities said that from about January 2011, Ulbricht ran a marketplace that hawked heroin, cocaine, LSD and methamphetamine, as well as hacker tools such as software for stealing passwords or logging keystrokes on people's machines.

Silk Road took in commissions ranging from 8 to 15 per cent of sales, raking in at least $80 million on more than $1.2 billion worth of transactions, the criminal complaint estimated.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-...nited-states-for-trial-over-silk-road/5923524
 
This really pisses me off. He's not an American citizen and shouldn't have anything to do with their legal system, if Australia wants to arrest and charge him that's one thing, but just sending him over to the yanks to be thrown in some hellhole of a prison for life is fucked up beyond belief.
 
Aust Silk Road accused faces life in jail

Former Queensland prison employee Peter Nash is locked up in a New York jail accused of conspiring to sell large quantities of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine through the black-market internet bazaar, Silk Road.

Nash, 41, was extradited from Australia to the US last week and faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in the American jail system if convicted.

He is being held in New York's Metropolitan Correctional Center ahead of an expected appearance in a Manhattan federal court this week.

"Silk Road was used by several thousand drug dealers and other unlawful vendors to distribute hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs and other illicit goods and services to well over a 100,000 buyers," the indictment against Nash and two co-accused.

New York's top federal prosecutor, Preet Bharara, announced a year ago the unsealing of the indictment against Brisbane-based Nash and the two other alleged site administrators, Virginia's Andrew Jones, 25, and Ireland's Gary Davis, 26.

Silk Road's alleged San Francisco-based owner and operator, Ross Ulbricht, known by the alias Dread Pirate Roberts, was arrested on October 1, 2013.

Nash, a former behavioural scientist at Queensland's Wacol Prison, was allegedly known on the site by aliases "Batman73" and "Samesamebutdifferent".

He was the primary moderator on the Silk Road site, sent Ulbricht a "weekly report" of his work and was paid between $US50,000 and $US75,000 a year, according to prosecutors.

As well as selling drugs and other illicit items, the Silk Road site provided the platform for the sale of computer hacking software, including "password stealers, keyloggers and remote access tools".

Cont -

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-new...ccused-faces-life-in-jail-20141201-3ljj0.html
 
Fuck the DEA; the FBI; and Uncle Sam's prohibitionist politicians and bureaucrats in general.

There will come a time, when you'll be too weak to enforce your racist, hypocritical, tyrannical laws in "the land of the free." A land; a nation which was founded upon the backs of slaves, and stolen from Native-Americans.

Personally, I can't wait for that day to come. It's past time you pathologically lying parasites and war criminals are dealt with severely and permanently. And make no mistake about it: Like other previous world leading empires before you, you WILL eventually crumble into history.

What a disgrace to democracy; to the fucking U.S. Constitution you've become.
 
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