When the two lines crossed, and the Dread Pirate Roberts (unaware of what was going on at the other end of the connection) discussed payments for information, Carl would scold Dread, reminding him to “Use PGP!” the highly secure messaging platform. In the few instances that DPR slipped up, Carl would pretend that there had been a technical glitch in his daily report. “AGENT’S NOTE: SA Force was unable to make several video recordings of the above messages due to problems with the SR site.”
It had all worked perfectly, until the lies started to pile up atop one another and Carl started to mix up who he was supposed to be and when he was supposed to be them. Rather than slow down, or even stop crossing the line, Carl decided to move that line even further away and he started creating more fake accounts and machinations to take more money.
Before the e-mail came in telling him to stand down, Carl decided to create another fictitious online persona, one that wasn’t Nob, the drug smuggler, or Kevin, the dirty DOJ employee, but a new character called French Maid. Under this new guise, Carl sent DPR another message, offering to sell more information about the investigation into the site. “I have received important information that you need to know asap. Please provide me with your public key for PGP.” This was the point where Carl’s lies were too complicated to track, and everything he was saying became jumbled in his own mind. As a result, Carl was about to make an irreversible mistake.
In a message to DPR, while pretending to be French Maid, he accidentally signed the message with his own name, Carl.
A short while later, when Carl realized what he had done, he quickly followed up with another message to Dread. “Whoops! I am sorry about that. My name is Carla Sophia and I have many boyfriends and girlfriends on the market place. DPR will want to hear what I have to say ;) xoxoxo.”
Luckily for Carl, the Dread Pirate Roberts could care less who Carl or Carla was; Dread just wanted the information that was for sale and gladly handed more than $100,000 to French Maid for more information that could help him keep the Feds at bay.
Carl thought he’d gotten away with his exploits, but in mid-September 2013 he heard that the Feds had fingered DPR. This was followed by the e-mail from his bosses to stand down. Carl was in a panic. If the FBI got Dread on his computer, then there might be more records of the conversations between the mendacious DEA agent and the Dread Pirate Roberts.
As Nob, he messaged DPR and told him: “My informant (Kevin) is certain that you are going to be identified and caught. You are like one of my family. but I have to tell you that I have had several people killed who were sent to jail. it is very easy and cheap,” Carl said, and then concluded the threat implied in that previous message. “I trust that you have destroyed all messages, chats, etc between us.”
But what if Dread didn’t delete the messages? After thinking all of this through, Carl knew that the only way to find out what the FBI knew, or would know if they captured Dread, was to see the servers that the Feds had apparently found. So he came up with another idea—another lie—and he called Chris Tarbell from the FBI, whom he had never spoken to before.
“Hi, this is Special Agent Carl Force from the DEA in Baltimore,” he barked at Tarbell. “When can I come up and look at the server?”
“Who is this?” Tarbell replied.
“Special Agent Carl Force from the— Look, you know, I really need to see that server.”
Tarbell was immediately combative in his response to Carl. “Did you get approval from the ASAC?”
“Yes, yes, yes, I did,” Carl stuttered, obviously not telling the truth, “When can I come up? What day is best for you?”
“There’s no time. If you want to see it, then you’ll have to go through ASAC.” And then Tarbell abruptly hung up.
After this interaction Carl was out of ideas. All he could hope was that DPR had done what Nob had requested and wiped the messages from his computer. Or maybe they would both be lucky and the Dread Pirate Roberts would get away, taking all of Carl’s secrets with him.
Chapter 64
FeLiNa
The last day of Ross’s life as a free man began just like any other. He woke up in his Monterey Boulevard apartment and slipped on his blue jeans and long-sleeved red T-shirt. Then he got to work on the Silk Road, unaware that by 3:16 p.m. that day, he would be sitting in the back of a police car in handcuffs.
He had been blue for the past few days, as things had not been going his way. First one of his government informants, who went by the moniker “French Maid,” told him that the Feds had a new name to add to the list of people who could potentially be the Dread Pirate Roberts, and French Maid (who had said her real name was Carla Sophia) would happily share the name in exchange for $100,000. So DPR had paid and was still waiting for a response. Then another employee, to whom he had loaned $500,000, had disappeared. To top it all off, his poison oak rash hadn’t gone away.
But there were things to be grateful for.
Ross was soon going to Austin, where he would see Julia. She had told him in an e-mail she would pick him up from the airport, and he could stay with her. Just like old times. They had been having romantic Skype sessions a lot too and sending long, dirty e-mails back and forth about what they would do to each other in person. Ross had also had an epiphany over the weekend. After the bonfire and the fireworks on Ocean Beach, he had written in his diary (alongside his travails on the Silk Road and an explanation for how he got the poison oak rash) that he needed to “eat well, get good sleep, and meditate so I can stay positive.”
12:15 p.m.
The houses along Monterey Boulevard were mostly two-and three-story wood frames. They were painted all different colors, some white, others blue or green. The apartment where Ross Ulbricht now lived was in a three-story beige building in the middle of the block. Every once in a while a large Suburban SUV with dark tinted windows would drive by. The SUV would make a right down Baden Street, then another right and another, until it found itself back in front of the beige building on Monterey Boulevard.
Even if anyone had noticed the SUV as it swirled around the blocks that morning, no one would have guessed what was inside the vehicle.
2:42 p.m.