Carl read the e-mail from the group supervisor on the Baltimore task force.
“Baltimore is to stand down on all SR activity for 1 week pending outcome of FBI NY takedown(s) next week,” the message said. It was soon followed by more severe instructions. “For right now, the important thing is that we not do anything that could in any way possible interfere with the arrest of DPR and the collection of evidence in the course of that arrest and search. Therefore, please stand down on all investigative activities, including logging onto Silk Road, it’s forums, or any UC communications.”
This is bad. So very, very bad.
Rumors had already traveled from New York via Washington, DC, to Carl’s small desk in his mauve-colored cubicle in Baltimore that the FBI and some other agents might have found the Dread Pirate Roberts. Now this confirmed it. It was the worst news Carl could ever imagine hearing. This was a problem not just for DPR but also for Carl and his secret online identities who were feeding information to the man he was supposed to be hunting.
Until now Carl’s plan had been working seamlessly. He would chat by day as Nob, and the conversations would be saved and logged in to a DEA investigation report. Then he would send those very thorough and detailed reports to Nick and the other agents on the Marco Polo task force.
A job well done. Good work, Carl!
Yet as dusk turned to dark, Carl would log on to his computer as Kevin, the government agent, and, for a fee, surreptitiously send Dread messages that were not recorded and put into a report.
When the two lines crossed, and the Dread Pirate Roberts (unaware of what was going on at the other end of the connection) discussed payments for information, Carl would scold Dread, reminding him to “Use PGP!” the highly secure messaging platform. In the few instances that DPR slipped up, Carl would pretend that there had been a technical glitch in his daily report. “AGENT’S NOTE: SA Force was unable to make several video recordings of the above messages due to problems with the SR site.”
It had all worked perfectly, until the lies started to pile up atop one another and Carl started to mix up who he was supposed to be and when he was supposed to be them. Rather than slow down, or even stop crossing the line, Carl decided to move that line even further away and he started creating more fake accounts and machinations to take more money.
Before the e-mail came in telling him to stand down, Carl decided to create another fictitious online persona, one that wasn’t Nob, the drug smuggler, or Kevin, the dirty DOJ employee, but a new character called French Maid. Under this new guise, Carl sent DPR another message, offering to sell more information about the investigation into the site. “I have received important information that you need to know asap. Please provide me with your public key for PGP.” This was the point where Carl’s lies were too complicated to track, and everything he was saying became jumbled in his own mind. As a result, Carl was about to make an irreversible mistake.
In a message to DPR, while pretending to be French Maid, he accidentally signed the message with his own name, Carl.
A short while later, when Carl realized what he had done, he quickly followed up with another message to Dread. “Whoops! I am sorry about that. My name is Carla Sophia and I have many boyfriends and girlfriends on the market place. DPR will want to hear what I have to say ;) xoxoxo.”
Luckily for Carl, the Dread Pirate Roberts could care less who Carl or Carla was; Dread just wanted the information that was for sale and gladly handed more than $100,000 to French Maid for more information that could help him keep the Feds at bay.
Carl thought he’d gotten away with his exploits, but in mid-September 2013 he heard that the Feds had fingered DPR. This was followed by the e-mail from his bosses to stand down. Carl was in a panic. If the FBI got Dread on his computer, then there might be more records of the conversations between the mendacious DEA agent and the Dread Pirate Roberts.
As Nob, he messaged DPR and told him: “My informant (Kevin) is certain that you are going to be identified and caught. You are like one of my family. but I have to tell you that I have had several people killed who were sent to jail. it is very easy and cheap,” Carl said, and then concluded the threat implied in that previous message. “I trust that you have destroyed all messages, chats, etc between us.”
But what if Dread didn’t delete the messages? After thinking all of this through, Carl knew that the only way to find out what the FBI knew, or would know if they captured Dread, was to see the servers that the Feds had apparently found. So he came up with another idea—another lie—and he called Chris Tarbell from the FBI, whom he had never spoken to before.
“Hi, this is Special Agent Carl Force from the DEA in Baltimore,” he barked at Tarbell. “When can I come up and look at the server?”
“Who is this?” Tarbell replied.
“Special Agent Carl Force from the— Look, you know, I really need to see that server.”
Tarbell was immediately combative in his response to Carl. “Did you get approval from the ASAC?”
“Yes, yes, yes, I did,” Carl stuttered, obviously not telling the truth, “When can I come up? What day is best for you?”
“There’s no time. If you want to see it, then you’ll have to go through ASAC.” And then Tarbell abruptly hung up.
After this interaction Carl was out of ideas. All he could hope was that DPR had done what Nob had requested and wiped the messages from his computer. Or maybe they would both be lucky and the Dread Pirate Roberts would get away, taking all of Carl’s secrets with him.