ex-dea-secret service agents in silk road fraud.pdf

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, March 30, 2015

JUSTICE NEWS

Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs

Former Federal Agents Charged With Bitcoin Money Laundering and Wire Fraud

Agents Were Part of Baltimore’s Silk Road Task Force

Two former federal agents have been charged with wire fraud, money laundering and related offenses for

stealing digital currency during their investigation of the Silk Road, an underground black market that

allowed users to conduct illegal transactions over the Internet. The charges are contained in a federal

criminal complaint issued on March 25, 2015, in the Northern District of California and unsealed today.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney

Melinda Haag of the Northern District of California, Special Agent in Charge David J. Johnson of the FBI’s

San Francisco Division, Special Agent in Charge José M. Martinez of the Internal Revenue Service-

Criminal Investigation’s (IRS-CI) San Francisco Division, Special Agent in Charge Michael P. Tompkins of

the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General Washington Field Office and Special Agent in

Charge Lori Hazenstab of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General in

Washington D.C. made the announcement.

Carl M. Force, 46, of Baltimore, was a Special Agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),

and Shaun W. Bridges, 32, of Laurel, Maryland, was a Special Agent with the U.S. Secret Service

(USSS). Both were assigned to the Baltimore Silk Road Task Force, which investigated illegal activity inthe Silk Road marketplace. Force served as an undercover agent and was tasked with establishing

communications with a target of the investigation, Ross Ulbricht, aka “Dread Pirate Roberts.” Force is

charged with wire fraud, theft of government property, money laundering and conflict of interest. Bridges

is charged with wire fraud and money laundering.

According to the complaint, Force was a DEA agent assigned to investigate the Silk Road marketplace.

During the investigation, Force engaged in certain authorized undercover operations by, among other

things, communicating online with “Dread Pirate Roberts” (Ulbricht), the target of his investigation. The

complaint alleges, however, that Force then, without authority, developed additional online personas and

engaged in a broad range of illegal activities calculated to bring him personal financial gain. In doing so,

the complaint alleges, Force used fake online personas, and engaged in complex Bitcoin transactions to

steal from the government and the targets of the investigation. Specifically, Force allegedly solicited and

received digital currency as part of the investigation, but failed to report his receipt of the funds, and

instead transferred the currency to his personal account. In one such transaction, Force allegedly sold

information about the government’s investigation to the target of the investigation. The complaint also

alleges that Force invested in and worked for a digital currency exchange company while still working for

the DEA, and that he directed the company to freeze a customer’s account with no legal basis to do so,

then transferred the customer’s funds to his personal account. Further, Force allegedly sent an

unauthorized Justice Department subpoena to an online payment service directing that it unfreeze his

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-federal-agents-charged-bitcoin-money-laundering-and-wire-fra


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15-386 Criminal Division

Updated March 30, 2015

personal account.

Bridges allegedly diverted to his personal account over $800,000 in digital currency that he gained control

of during the Silk Road investigation. The complaint alleges that Bridges placed the assets into an

account at Mt. Gox, the now-defunct digital currency exchange in Japan. He then allegedly wired funds

into one of his personal investment accounts in the United States mere days before he sought a $2.1

million seizure warrant for Mt. Gox’s accounts.

Bridges self-surrendered today and will appear before Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James of the

Northern District of California at 9:30 a.m. PST this morning. Force was arrested on Friday, March 27,

2015, in Baltimore and will appear before Magistrate Judge Timothy J. Sullivan of the District of Maryland

at 2:30 p.m. EST today.

The charges contained in the complaint are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed

innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The case was investigated by the FBI’s San Francisco Division, the IRS-CI’s San Francisco Division, the

Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General and the Department of Homeland Security Office of

the Inspector General in Washington D.C. The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement

Network also provided assistance with the investigation of this case. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kathryn Haun and William Frentzen of the Northern District of California and Trial

Attorney Richard B. Evans of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section.

Criminal Complaint

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-federal-agents-charged-bitcoin-money-laundering-and-wire-fra


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