Space News from SpaceDaily.com
Irish man pleads guilty in NY over Silk Road narcotics conspiracy
ADVERTISEMENT

New York, Oct 5 (AFP) Oct 05, 2018
A 30-year-old Irish man pled guilty in New York on Friday to narcotics conspiracy over the now-defunct "dark web" marketplace Silk Road, just months after being extradited to the United States.

US prosecutors say Gary Davis, who went by the alias "Libertas," was a Silk Road administrator in 2013 -- paid a weekly salary to carry out duties that included resolving disputes between drug dealers and buyers on the site.

The Wicklow man was arrested in Ireland on January 2014 and extradited to the United States in July, where he had faced a battery of charges.

On Friday, he pled guilty in a Manhattan federal court to one count of conspiracy to distribute narcotics, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, after cutting a plea deal.

He is expected to be sentenced on January 17, 2019.

"As he admitted today, Gary Davis served as an administrator who helped run the Silk Road marketplace," said Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman.

"The purported anonymity of the dark web is not a protective shield from prosecution," he added.

Until the FBI shut it down in October 2013, the US government called Silk Road "the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet," used by vendors in more than 10 countries in North America and Europe.

Texan mastermind Ross Ulbricht was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for running the online enterprise that sold $200 million in drugs worldwide.

Operating under the alias "Dread Pirate Roberts," his trial was considered a landmark case in the murky world of online crime and government surveillance.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
Final Voyage Delayed: ULA Postpones Last Delta IV Heavy Launch with Classified NRO Payload
Japan Moon probe survives second lunar night
Europe space telescope's sight restored after de-icing procedure

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Revolutionizing Particle Physics: AI's Role in Deciphering Complex Particle Paths
UC San Diego Scientists Unveil Plant-Based Polymers that Biodegrade Microplastics in Months
Cambridge working to unlock new solar energy pathways

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
AI generates high-quality images 30 times faster in a single step
Aerospacelab and Xona Unite to Transform Satellite Navigation
GITAI's robotic system triumphs in ISS demo

24/7 News Coverage
'Just staggering': UN says households waste 1 bn meals a day
Neolithic Mariners: Unveiling the Mediterranean's Oldest Boats
Greece to buy seven Canadian water bombers for wildfires


All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.