Silk Road Vendor and Murder-for-Hire Orchestrator Charged

~2 min read | Published on 2023-05-13, tagged ArrestedCryptocurrencyIndicted using 475 words.

A recently unsealed indictment charges a Canadian man accused of distributing large quantities of a variety of drugs and planning the murder of five individuals on behalf of Silk Road's founder and admin, Ross Ulbricht.


According to court documents, 47-year-old James Ellingson of Vancouver, Canada, sold large quantities of methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, and marijuana through Silk Road under the usernames "MarijuanaIsMyMuse" and "Lucydrop", from at least November 2011 to September 2013. Under the username "redandwhite", Ellingson claimed he would hire hitmen for Ulbricht.
According to the three-count indictment, the MarijuanaIsMyMuse vendor account was created in November 2011. Data recovered from Silk Road servers revealed that the vendor account sold more than four kilograms of methamphetamine; more than 100 grams of heroin; more than two kilograms of cocaine; approximately one and a half grams of LSD; approximately 7 kilograms of MDMA, and more than 19 kilograms of marijuana.
Blockchain analysis revealed that bitcoin withdrawn from the MarijuanaIsMyMuse vendor account ended up in Bitstamp and Cavirtex accounts registered to Ellingson.
The investigators executed a search warrant for the email associated with the accounts and found out that Ellingson had used it to save the username and password of MarijuanaIsMyMuse. They also recovered emails with drug weights, names, and their respective prices.
The Lucydrop account was created in April 2012 and reportedly sold drugs worth a total of $285,000 by March 2013.
In March 2013 Lucydrop was contacted by a user under the moniker "FriendlyChemist." FriendlyChemist wanted Lucydrop and Ulbricht to honor their agreement and pay him for supplying Lucydrop with drugs to sell on SilkRoad.
A few days later FriendlyChemist contacted Ulbricht and threatened to leak the identities of some Silkroad vendors and buyers if he was not paid.
In late March 2013, redandwhite contacted Ulbricht and claimed he was FriendlyChemist's supplier and that FriendlyChemist owed him money. Ulbricht and redandwhite then started discussing a murder-for-hire plot against FriendlyChemist.
Ulbricht sent redandwhite $150,000 in Bitcoin as payment for the murder of FriendlyChemist. In early April 2013, redandwhite told Ulbricht FriendlyChemist had been murdered and sent a picture as proof of the murder.
Later that month redandwhite claimed he had overseen the murder of four individuals linked to FriendlyChemist after receiving $500,000 for the murders from Ulbricht.
In September 2013 Ulbricht loaned redandwhite over $500,000 in bitcoin. Ulbricht told redandwhite he would send someone to collect the loan's collateral and asked redandwhite to send a picture of himself to verify his identity. The photograph was recovered from Ulbricht's Laptop and shows Ellingson standing in front of a building.
Ellingson's identity was confirmed by a photograph acquired from Canadian law enforcement and the driver's license photograph he used to verify his Bitstamp and Cavirtex accounts.
Canadian authorities arrested Ellingson in October 2018. The indictment against him was unsealed on May 11, 2023. It charges him with one count each of conspiring in drug trafficking, drug importation, and money laundering.

Comments (26)


disc02023-05-13
3110ac71

Good to finally hear this one

ross2023-05-13
a9fa26ef

wow so did they actually get someone killed? no longer conspiracy

bada2023-05-14
66aa646b

your reading comprehension not so good ross

$l3nt2023-05-22
d9d109f8

so nice to nkow this dark side of internet 😌

maineu2023-05-13
b921dec5

that is a massive amount of marijuana.

Whiskey tango Foxtro2023-05-14
4030afeb

Fuckin mountains of weed bro.

LucyDrop2023-05-14
60a38b2a

Nobody was killed, but this proves that Ross or whoever had access to the admin account did in fact illicit a murder for hire scheme

MurderMeRoss2023-05-15
b455dcfd

wait how do we know that the first one wasn't carried out?

JoeMamma2023-05-16
9b7cfd8c

We already knew that genius. The new information here is that lucydrop, friendlychemist, and redandwhite was the same person as vendor marijuanaismymuse who devised the ruse to scam ross of coin. Previously it was speculated that redandwhite was LE or an informant where they came up with this fake murder-for-hire scheme to entrap Ross. That turned out not to be true.

fedmore2023-05-14
a0113c80

nice to close this for the history books.

fghgfd2023-05-14
d7471090

insane story... Free ulbricht uh?? Good luck with that kind of news

FriendlyChemist2023-05-15
6fe323dd

Pusey ass 🥷🏿 put money on my head go,on get ya refund mother fucker I’m not dead- 50 cent

Legend2023-05-20
3e22a235

Proud of you Fucker

Fox Mulder2023-05-19
caa31db2

been waiting on this story a few years now.

Emily Lee 2023-05-22
67cd9d1a

Be warned, most of these so called hackers are imposters,i have been ripped off several times already, thankfully my friend introduced me to a reliable contact, he works with discretion and shows proof before payment , does all sorts of hacks, would prefer to let his services speak for itself, you can contact him on Wickr at wizcyber (would have to download wicker app) , if he asks where you got his contact do say from Lisa.

getout2023-05-24
e5395da1

^ SCAMMER ^

gayass2023-05-24
a2df5e97

shut the fuck up you shill

limatango2023-05-22
c45cef7d

i was reading g about this few minutes ago and i came here to confirm

viktor 2023-05-23
231a20be

does anyone know any good gun buying websites for users in the us

gayass2023-05-24
42746d08

they do not exist

Edward Snowden2023-05-25
a8da9d9d

in the US you can buy a gun in every street corner lol, i think you should buy a fake ID to buy the gun in the "legal" way

Cockroach2023-05-26
4ede2b48

Why? so you can shoot up a preschool and possible influence harsher regulation on firearms? Get the parts and build one. No good darknet site will allow firearms

exda 2023-05-28
a125c2b5

A few things; many of those interested ir involved in Ulbrichts story think thst some one besides him was accesing that account. That didn't happen. One of the reasons he was hard to shut down was that he operated off one laptop that was always with.him. They had to catch him with it open and they did ,before he could shut it, the woman agent put her hand on the keyboard just as he slammed it shut. No one can speak to thr morals of another but he got caught the same reason husband's get caught cheating, children get caught doing things wrong by their parents and students get caught cheating on tests. They all think that early success means they are smarter than rhey are instead of looking at thr situation for what it is. This causes humans to take greater chances. It's because we all have complicated personalities with ego , ID, AND superego. The question to ask is does Ulbricht have any empathy as a component of his personality or is he a psychopath?

8976666662023-05-31
4c7f2dc3

do u have a reference where that woman agent put her hand on the keyboard when he slammed it shut?

soda2023-05-31
dc7e20d1

PLEASE GIMME SODA

BlackDahlia2023-05-31
0f14ec1d

no matter him cleaning off a loose end would have been a great move.... but anyhow am happy he ain't in any shit