Over the last 48 hours the alleged owner of Silk Road 2.0 has been arrested in San Francisco and named as Blake Benthall, a former SpaceX employee who left the firm in February. I got alerted to this event via the Tor subreddit where an eastern European (he didn’t disclose what country) said his house had been raided, two computers seized and told he is an ‘international suspect of fraud and money laundering’ and could face a maximum sentence of fourteen years in prison although no charges have been pressed at this point.
It’s unclear whether he was running and exit relay or not and said he followed a tutorial to get things setup so it’s normal to think he was unsure of the fine details. However this incident seems to have set a dangerous precedent: running a Tor node can potentially land you in hot water with law enforcement.
