Silkroad Founder Accused in Six Murder-for-Hire Plots: PokerStars to Offer Bitcoin?

With online gambling sites only now beginning to jump on the Bitcoin bandwagon (quite possibly PokerStars among them), some of the earlier Bitcoin startups are currently facing scrutiny, the most notorious of them all being drug bazaar Silkroad.

And now the founder of that underground company, Ross Ulbricht, is alleged to have set up at least six murder-for-hire plots.

The 30-year-old Ulbricht goes on trial in New York January 5.  A grand jury last February indicted Ulbrict on one count for narcotics conspiracy, one count of running a criminal enterprise, one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking and one count of money laundering.  The murder-for-hire plot is not part of that particular indictment.  Instead he is charged with the scheme in a separate case in federal court in Baltimore.

Among those Ulbrict is alleged to have wanted dead, a vendor called “Friendly Chemist” who threatened to blackmail him by disclosing the identities of some of Silk Road’s vendors and customers.

“In my eyes, Friendly Chemist is a liability and I wouldn’t mind if he was executed,” prosecutors said Ulbricht wrote in one e-mail.

It is also claimed that Ulbrict attempted to solicit a hitman to kill an employee who he says stole $350,000 in bitcoins from him.

With Bitcoin gaining more acceptance on a mainstream scale, the world’s largest online poker site, PokerStars, is rumored to be contemplating using the anonymous digital currency for deposits and payouts.

Another popular online poker site, AmericasCardroom, last week fully implemented Bitcoin into its platform.  While offering the currency for a number of months, ACR only recently began allowing cash conversions to Bitcoin for withdrawals.

- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com