The 47-year-old, James Ellingson from Vancouver, Canada was charged with three trafficking and money laundering counts in federal court according to an indictment unsealed last Thursday. The Canadian authorities had already arrested him in October 2018.
Ellingson also allegedly took payments from Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht totaling over $500,000 to carry out five different murders that prosecutors allege he might not have completed.
He went under the usernames "MarijuanaIsMyMuse" and "Lucydrop", selling large quantities of methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, and marijuana through Silk Road from at least November 2011 to September 2013. Though, the handle he used to communicate with Ulbricht was "redandwhite".
It's no secret that the FBI seized the Silk Road server and took a copy of the data. After some time analyzing them, blockchain analysis revealed that bitcoin withdrawn from the MarijuanaIsMyMuse vendor account ended up in Bitstamp and Cavirtex accounts registered to Ellingson.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.
How Ulbricht ended up commissioning the murders:
- Lucydrop account was created in April 2012.
- In early March 2013 moniker 'FriendlyChemist' joined the Silk Road forum claiming he lent some drugs to LucyDrop and wasn't paid.
- FriendlyChemist demanded Lucydrop or Ulbricht to honor the agreement and pay the debt LucyDrop caused to him.
- Receiving no reply, furious FriendlyChemist threatened to leak the identities of notable Silkroad vendors and buyers if he wasn't 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.
No murders actually took place. The first "hit" was purchased from an undercover DEA agent and was meant to take out a former Silk Road staffer. According to the Federal prosecutors, there is no evidence that Ellingson ever carried out the other five murders. Likewise, Ross Ulbricht was never convicted of commissioning them.
It's believed the murders where an elaborate scam run by someone operating under multiple personas. Obtaining over $1 million 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.
Log entries from Ulbricht's laptop:
loaning $500k to r&w to start vending on SR
r&w flaked out and disappeared with my 1/2 mil
If convicted, Ellingson faces up to life in prison.
Free Ross