It was late afternoon on July 26, 2013, when the Jeep pulled up to 2260 Fifteenth Avenue in San Francisco. Pulling the Jeep to a stop, Dylan Critten, an agent with the Department of Homeland Security, reached for his bag and a printout of a California driver’s license.
Dylan looked like he was born to work in law enforcement. He had a cop’s buzz cut, broad shoulders, and a face that could easily have been hammered out from a single cinder block. As he got out of the SUV, he looked up at the house in front of him, a sort of Spanish-style place with a white exterior and brown terra-cotta roof.
A day earlier Dylan had been asked by his old buddy from the Department of Homeland Security, Agent Ramirez, to follow up on a lead about nine fake IDs that had come in from customs agents at San Francisco International Airport’s mail center. Agent Ramirez had almost given up on the IDs before he realized that he had gone to the wrong home two weeks earlier to do a knock-and-talk, driving to 2260 Fifteenth Street instead of 2260 Fifteenth Avenue.
Now it was Dylan’s turn to go to the right place. With his partner by his side, Dylan ascended the front steps and looked through the glass front door down a long hallway. At the exact moment he lifted his fist to knock on the door, he saw a man, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, appear in the hall in front of him. Dylan froze, his fist a mere inch from the door, stopping before it touched the glass.
Ross Ulbricht froze too.
Dylan looked down at the piece of paper in his hand, then back at the man now standing half naked in the hallway. Without any question, they were the same person. The man on the nine fake IDs was now walking toward the front door, turning the handle, and pulling it open. There Ross stood, no shirt, no shoes, just a pair of dirty khaki shorts, looking at the strangers in front of him and seemingly assuming—hoping, even—that they were at the wrong house.
“Hello, my name is Agent Critten,” Dylan said as he turned to look at his partner. “And this is Agent Taylor.” Ross’s facial expression started to look strained. “And we’re from the Department of Homeland Security.” As those words hung in the air between the three men, Ross’s demeanor morphed into one of terror. “Can you step outside so we can talk to you?” Dylan asked.
Oh, dear God. This is it. The end.
Ross took a few steps outside, and Dylan raised the printout of the fake IDs so Ross could see it. “We’re here to talk to you about these counterfeit documents that were set to be delivered here,” Dylan said, watching as Ross’s grimace turned stark white with dread.
This is it. Fudge!
Dylan waited for Ross to respond, but instead he just looked back, petrified. His hands were now visibly starting to shake. The agents could see how scared Ross was, so they began speaking quickly back and forth, both playing good cop to try to put him at ease—the last thing they wanted was someone who wouldn’t cooperate with them. “We’re not here to arrest you for having fake documents,” they began. “We just want to talk to you a little about the IDs.” As they spoke, assuring him that they were just there to talk, Ross’s hands stopped shaking and the color started to return to his face.
“So you’re not going to arrest me?” Ross muttered, his voice brittle.
“No, no,” the agents said. “But we will need to see your real ID to know who you are.”
Ross hesitated but, knowing he didn’t have much of a choice, he went to his bedroom, returning with his real Texas ID. Again, he asked, “So you’re not here to arrest me?”
“No,” Dylan explained as he scrutinized the license with Ross Ulbricht’s name on it. “We just want to talk about these IDs and to make sure you are who you say are so we know you’re not a fugitive.” Dylan also explained that, as agents, their job was to find the people who made fake IDs, not necessarily those who purchased them.
Hearing this, Ross realized that his worst fears were simply fears. These agents were completely unaware of whom they were standing in front of. As he became aware of this reality, he started to feel confident.
“I understand that you don’t want to make a statement acknowledging these documents are yours, because that could incriminate you,” Dylan said, giving Ross an out so the agents could continue asking him questions. “So hypothetically, if I needed these kinds of documents, where would I get them from? Just tell me in hypotheticals.”
“We’re just speaking in hypotheticals?”
“Yes,” Dylan said, “strictly hypothetically.”
It was apparent to all three of the men on that stoop that day that Ross was the smartest of them all. His answer to Dylan’s question made it clear that he had the most hubris too. “So anyone,” Ross began, “hypothetically, could use the Tor network and can go onto a site called the Silk Road and buy anything they want.” He paused for a second, then concluded, “Including guns, drugs, or fake IDs.”
The two agents looked at each other, scrunching their faces, both unsure what the Silk Road was.
Ross, who a few minutes earlier had been ready to buckle at his knees, began playing with the agents, becoming flippant with his responses. The agents didn’t know this at the time, though; to them it appeared that the man standing in front of them with no shoes and no shirt was doing the government a favor by offering up this information. Maybe this man from Texas could even become a source for them?
Dylan had learned early on in his career that to get someone on your side in a case, you had to cultivate the relationship.
“How can we keep in communication with you in the future?” Dylan asked.
“Well, I don’t have a cell phone,” Ross said.
“Do you have an e-mail?”
“Sure,” Ross said. Dylan handed him a pen and a piece of paper and Ross wrote down “[email protected].” He hoped this would be the end of the conversation, but the agents had one last question for him.
“Before we go,” Dylan said, “we think you’re a smart guy—a clever guy—but it’s odd to us that you would order nine IDs; normal people, even normal criminals, don’t order nine fake driver’s licenses. It all just seems very odd to us.” Ross didn’t reply as Dylan kept talking. “So we’re going to need to talk to your roommates and your neighbors—” Dylan’s partner interrupted, finishing the sentence, ”To make sure there are no dead bodies.”
Ross’s face scrunched up again, fear returning. “Well,” Ross said, “that’s going to be a bit of a problem.”
“Why?”
“Because my roommates know me as Josh,” Ross replied. He quickly deflected suspicion about that anomaly, talking to the agents about his privacy, and also made it clear with his body language that he wanted them to leave.