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United States v. Ulbricht

31 F. Supp. 3d 540 (2014)

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United States v. Ulbricht

United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
31 F. Supp. 3d 540 (2014)

Facts

The United States indicted Ross Ulbricht (defendant) for, among other things, participating in a money-laundering conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956. The charges against Ulbricht arose from Ulbricht’s design, launch, and administration of a website called the Silk Road, which allegedly served as a marketplace for contraband goods and services. Ulbricht allegedly made Silk Road a facilitator of illegal transactions by making the site available only via Tor (software and a network that anonymized internet activity) and by requiring that all transactions be paid for with Bitcoin (an anonymous and untraceable digital currency). Ulbricht moved to dismiss the money-laundering count, arguing that § 1956 applied only to financial transactions involving monetary instruments. Relying on pronouncements by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) regarding Bitcoin, Ulbricht claimed that transactions using Bitcoin—the Silk Road’s exclusive payment method—did not involve monetary instruments and thus were not within § 1956’s ambit.

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning (Forrest, J.)

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