(KMJ) 38 year old David Burchard was arrested late Monday in connection with one of the most notorious web-based criminal enterprises in US history.
US Attorney Ben Wagner, at a news conference Tuesday in Fresno, accused Burchard of being a major narcotics vendor on the “Silk Road” and other dark-web marketplaces.
The Silk Road website was shut down by federal investigators in 2013 and its founder is now serving a life sentence for trafficking drugs among other crimes.
According to the complaint, Burchard accepted orders for marijuana and cocaine on dark-web marketplaces and then mailed the narcotics from post offices in Merced and Fresno County to his customers throughout the US. Detectives say Burchard was paid primarily in Bitcoin. Federal law enforcement estimates that Burchard, whose thousands of sales through the Silk Road were in excess of $1.4 million before that website was closed, was one of the largest vendors on the Silk Road. The complaint alleges that after federal law enforcement shut down the Silk Road website and arrested its founder in October 2013, Burchard transferred his narcotics business to Agora and then to AlphaBay, which are other dark-web marketplaces.
Atty. Ben Wagner
“The Department of Justice and our federal law enforcement partners will continue to investigate and prosecute major interstate narcotics traffickers,” said U.S. Attorney Wagner in a release. “Those traffickers who believe they can escape the scrutiny of law enforcement by conducting their business on the dark-web and receiving payments in digital currency are mistaken.”
