The Dark Side Of The Silk Road 

Fair warning. Tons of spoilers in the comments. Follow up video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1VZkiQUzITU.html

Took me 8 seconds to realize this is not the about overland trade routes of the Han dynasty

I watched this genuinely wanting a history of the dark side of a trade route 2,150 years ago, however still satisfied

"I've only ever commissioned one other hit, so I'm still learning this market" is CRAZY

it's clear he was so enthusiastic about enacting a walter white-esque power play that he didnt stop to think about how anything actually worked

I was fully prepared to watch an hour long video about people being mugged in the sand over some chinese worm-cloth, but this works too.

Came for the historic trade route. Stayed for the dreadlock pirate.

After you listen to his parents you understand why he grew up thinking he could get away with something like that. The fact that the people that he thought he was ordering killed weren't real may have kept him from being charged criminally with murder doesn't excuse him morally. If that had been a law enforcement agent instead of a scammer that he'd been talking to, he could have easily been charged with and convicted of conspiracy to commit murder.

this is my comfort video. ive fell asleep to it so many times. I go to it when I feel down or when I feel happy. Thank you for making it.

This man straight up baited the whole entire World History fan community

"I won't be blackmailed." - quote from man blackmailed.

Great video

I think one of the most insane parts of this story is that Ross Ulbright was so easily fooled. He’s from Texas, dude had a 1450 on his SAT and studied Physics at UT Austin. A classically brilliant man who for whatever reason was also incredibly gullible 😂

Am I the only one who finds it hilarious that the FBI's plan to get the laptop was to have two of their agents pretend to have a lovers' quarrel, until Ross felt so awkward he'd leave, hopefully leaving his computer with all the info for his black market platform open and unattended? And even MORE hilarious that it _worked?_

"we produce a lot of things that would get this video demonetized" its really considerate of them to be so concerned with your video

Ross so terribly underestimated the forces that would come after him. it caused him fatal mistakes: not to have a much stricter instant lockdown encryption system on his laptop, and worst of all, leaving traces that led straight to himself, even carrying his own name.

They don't usually deal in hits but they have multiple professional local hitters available within 1 day. How did this not set off any red flags?

It's like if Breaking Bad was a Discord server

Dude was so manipulated didn't even question the blackmail.txt

This is an absolutely brilliant video on one of the most fascinating true stories I've ever heard. Extremely well done sir!

The fact that he intended and was under the impression to have successfully have essentially 3 people taken out is enough for me to say he got what he deserved

Me who wanted to learn about the ancient Mongolian trade route: *anger*

It is mindblowing to me that talking about hits and murders related to drug dealing is cool with youtube, but actually saying the names of drugs is tooooo much.

I did think it to be clearly a scam until RedAndWhite appeared, I don't know exactly what it was, but before I knew it I was like "wait, so all those stories were actually real", and was completely hooked until the end. I think it was the same for DPR. The betrayal at the end that it was all a con was shocking and then hilarious. Like others mentioned it was still a tricky situation difficult to get out of, and that clearly played a part in fooling him (and me), but it's also so ironic that in trying to not be blackmailed he actually gave up twice than was originally asked for; it's just so beautiful, a complete and utter manipulation of emotions, intellect and intentions, a masterpiece dare I say

I don’t have a shred of sympathy for Ross. He genuinely thought he murdered several people and was ok with that. I don’t even care if that’s not his charge. He’s a pretentious little slime ball and his parents are doing him NO favors by being in such denial. It’s pathetic, really. They’re now scammers themselves.

Did this guy literqlly just try to pull the "it's a social experiment" / "it's a prank" at the court

ok but why do hitman requests sound like negotiating art commissions?

I’m a lawyer, and sometimes with criminal cases the Defendant simply refuses to take a plea deal against your advice and you have to go to trial despite not really having a defense. Also remember you’re innocent until proven guilty. Sometimes the best Defense isnt to present your own evidence but to simply say the State hasn’t provided enough evidence to convict me. In my experience that’s usually the argument people who’ve been caught red handed go with.

One of the craziest things is that the last episode of Breaking Bad where Heisenberg finally loses and dies aired on September 29, 2013. Breaking Bad was one of Ross's favorite shows. Ross was arrested on October 1, 2013. That means he was arrested just two days after the final episode was released. It was as if the universe was warning him, foreshadowing his ultimate downfall. And the parallels of Walter White and Ross Ulbritch is so unncanny. Both are incredibly talented, intellectual and educated people, uses their wits to get involved in the black market. Both became millionaires, but ulitmately became their own downfall in the end.

So let me get this right, some guy tried to blackmail the owner of silk road for $500k, the owner wanted him killed to stop any info being leaked, so that guy created another account and pretended to be a member of Hell's Angels and faked his own assassination and others, so he could actually scam the owner for even more than he originally planned?

What’s up Ross being so trusting? I feel like he’s the type of guy to believe there are hot singles in your area.

Ross’ parents are definitely in denial. They have already decided he is innocent and therefore they can ask “show me the evidence” all they want, but we all know they will just come up with some story about how it’s fake, how it was planted, how he must have been framed, etc. They SHOULD be advocating for him to get some sort of leniency instead of spending the rest of his life in jail without possibility of parole. But to say he should have been acquitted!!?? They are delusional. Just because the people he ordered murdered were never killed doesn’t make him any less dangerous, since he fully believed they were real people.

Sounds like a flaw in all the SR type sites. The fact that any dealer could blackmail the admin with lists of customers. I guess it’s only a few dealers like Ellingson that would be in a position to do this but it still seems possible with other sites too.

disappointing, I was all geared up to talk trash about Marco Polo.

"the dark side of an illegal drug site."

“We produce a lot of things that would get this video demonetized” made me laugh way too hard

I love the how the pure friendship and mutual respect was created in chats between R&W and DPR ❤

The man who scammed dread pirates roberts is a genius

I like how at the end he says have a good night, because this is exactly the type of video you watch at night

The funniest part to me is that the scammer actually fucked up at one point while acting as RedandWhite - they say that they kidnapped FriendlyChemist's partner, not LucyDrop's, at 32:55. And Ulbricht didn't even notice, he just assumes they meant LucyDrop's partner! The scammer definitely isn't a great person by any stretch (based on the fact that they seem to have screwed over plenty of end customers as well), but I'd be lying if I didn't say I got quite a bit of schadenfreude from watching Ulbricht walk directly into this trap.

This is absolutely one of *the* most interesting videos/docs on RU-vid. Very well done, and what a crazy story!

I clicked thinking this was a history of the trade routes connecting Asia and Europe between ~200BC and ~1700AD

Love how “hells angels” guy starts by claiming they don’t do hits and just a bit later he has all this intricate shit planned out

I find it hilarious that someone can say, with a straight face: "He started a dark net marketplace to spread freedom and liberty!" About someone who made millions and millions of dollars facilitating the sale of over a billion worth of illegal drugs

hells angels on a dark web market?? that's like the mafia selling on newspapers lol

the fact he got scammed for 273 million dollars in today’s bitcoin is crazy

The real horror story here is the high amounts of bitcoins being tossed around.

Anytime I’m bored and have nothing to do I rewatch this masterpiece of a video.

Genuinely one of the best videos on the internet.

Imagine; You own the biggest online drug market on earth, making millions per week. Your bit coin wallet will eventually be worth multiple BILLIONS of dollars. Then you get caught because a fed stole your laptop using the oldest trick in the book.

LMFAO avoiding demonization must have been like walking through a minefield

put this video on expecting it to act as background noise while i finish a few essays, and wow. completely hooked. loved everything about the delivery and just thoroughly enjoyed. amazing watch

42:17 “good luck and be safe” had to actually come and look at my phone to make sure I heard that right because LOOOOOOOOOL

Should've used NordVPN

The fact that FriendlyChemist was supposedly murdered on the 1st of April is an excellent coincidence.

This is amazing, loving all your content in all your accounts, keep doing what you doing 👍👍

Coming back to this video, had to say, that still to this day this has been one of my absolute favorite videos on RU-vid. Thanks!

Maybe the real Dread Pirate Roberts were the friends we made along the way.

“Can you make it 96 hours? I have big plans for the weekend...” when you are in a middle of a complicated standoff but you still want to show up at your best friends birthday BBQ... 😂

Honestly, I feel like you’re the only creator outside of maybe yesterworld and like 2 others who actually puts thought and care into putting out a truthful and direct mostly unbiased documentary on events. Good on you man. Wish I had money to donate, but I don’t. Just know that I really enjoy your content.

This is my comfort video I hope you know that I’ve watched this video over 20 times and I come back to it in my darkest moments because it’s such good storytelling and your voice is soothing

How Ross was caught straight up sounds like a skit from snl

I'm just amazed by the Hell's Angels' politeness and spelling.

Has anyone else rewatched this like ten times now? It's like an irl thriller movie.

Wow man. I watched a doc on this somewhere and it was good but this video is insanely great. I just discovered your channel and have already suggested it to so many.

They're ordering hits like takeout. Jesus Christ

To my NSA Agent, i swear im just watching this cause im curious

This is by far the best video i've ever seen on youtube. Just came back to rewatch it and its truly amazing.

This was so well put together. Thank you so much. I enjoyed this a lot.

I don’t remember the last time I watched an entire hour+ long video without skipping... great storytelling and narrative skills.

Okay well I clicked on this expecting some historical travesties about the Chinese trade route but jesus christ I got invested in something I was not expecting

Despite the sentence being too harsh, Ross is the definition of "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime". He was a soft, rich kid who lived in comfort, convenience and excess. He wasn't cut out to be involved in something as serious and dark as the black market. And yet he still pursued it. He loved feeling powerful, anonymous, being a big shot. He said he envisioned that one day, some stranger was gonna talk about Silk Road, not knowing it was him, the creator of it all. Well, he got caught and everybody now knows he was the creator. He thought hiring hitmen was cool and awesome and I think this pissed off the judge even more because the judge mentioned how it's fictional that Silk Road was a place of freedom because it was still governed by laws, not the state's laws, but laws that Ross imposed. It was Ross' decision who was worthy of death in his site. Who deserved to die and who gets a pass. While he was on Silk Road, he was the judge handing out death sentences to those he found guilty. Luckily, none of the assassinations ever happened but like BarelySociable says, it was all real in his mind. He only started regretting what he did after getting caught and experiencing prison life. Suddenly, the comforts and conveniences of his privileged lifestyle was all gone and he broke like a fragile vase tipped over the tabletop. In all of his letters in Ross org, he describes how difficult it is to be in prison. Prison life was too blunt and hard for him. Like I said, he was soft, he wasn't cut out for this. He played with fire, had fun with it and got burned alive. So yeah, he really is a case of "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime".

Not sure what I expected when starting this video. I knew it wasn't going to be about an ancient trade route, but I wasn't expecting this either. Well done though, I don't think anyone has ever made reading a bunch of other people emails for an hour so interesting!

Plot twist: Ross was DreadPirateRoberts, FriendlyChemist, and RedAndWhite. This was Fight Club. It was all in his head.

Oh my god, this is basically a documentary

I came here from that video on IG

ive been ignoring this video for years so its about time i watch everything

so glad this was randomly recommended to me. so fucking interesting

Its scary how casually they’re talking about killing and kidnapping people.

It’s my third or fourth time watching this, it’s like a good movie, you always can rewatch it

I'm so shocked about the story that you are presenting I did not know that any of this was going on. I want to say I thank you for taking the time to do these videos to educate those who are in the world that these things were going on right under our eyes

Why the hell would you walk away from a computer while logged in to your multi-million dollar startup?

not gonna lie I thought this was about the ancient silk road for some reason (Edit) : sub to josh bean vlogs

I think the thing that made the whole scam really work was the fact that the “original” blackmailer was threatening to release the personal information of other users and potentially steal from them as well. Obviously, it’s insane that he got involved in any of this murder for hire stuff, but I can also see how Ulbricht could justify it to himself by saying that he wasn’t just protecting himself, but a bunch of other people as well. Obviously it’s incredibly immoral, but I can imagine how a certain kind of person who wouldn’t do anything like this in the real world could go down that line if thinking.

Came here for a documentary about the road 2000 years ago and got this, still earned yourself a sub this was incredible

Why would a person that runs a dark web market that sells illegal items use a gmail with their real name

This guy must play GTA V roleplay servers like a God. Pulling off three different identities perfectly

BRO! This was ride! I knew it was scam from the first two arguing but the actual “hells angel” tripped me up for a minute! I KNEW bro was a master manipulator 😂

I think i watched this two years ago. Again can't stop watching.

Wow the person who scammed him hit a gold mine. Turns out the Friendly Chemist wasn't that friendly after all.

The real twist would be if even DreadPirateRoberts was just another one of this dude's aliases and everything was just him talking to himself.

this man's voice brings this story all together. i love it sm

this video is so good man I always come back to it after I forget it

FriendlyChemist: the drug supplier that cares for his family.

i was pissed off when they killed friendly chemist he was my favorite character

Love that this guy had a tab open on his laptop marked "evidence against me"

This is one of the best videos I've ever watched. Can't believe stuff like this is here for free

So basically his legal defense boiled down to "it was just a prank bro"

Friendly chemist graduated from Nigerian school of princes. He’s playing chess 10 moves ahead.

Couldn’t stop watching this, good stuff! Kept me entertained at work for a moment.