Breaking: DHS Once Thought Mt Gox CEO Owned Silk Road

Wow, in court today as the Ross Ubricht trial continues, Ulbricht's attorney Joshua Dratel cross-examined, Homeland Security agent Jared Der-Yeghiayan and got him to admit that the DHS originally believed that Mt Gox founder Mark Karpeles was the Silk Road mastermind . Der-Yeghiayan  testified that  “lots of little things added up to" Kaerpeles being the owner of Silk Road.

Dratel even got Der-Yeghiayan to testify that one of Karpeles’s holding companies Mutum Sigilum, had registered silkroadmarket.org. Der-Yeghiayan even drafted a copy of a search warrant for Mark Karpeles’s email in 2013 on the basis that he was the owner of Silk Road

According to testimony from Der-Yeghiayan, when the Baltimore investigators asked Karpeles about Silk Road, Karpeles said that he would “tell them the name of the person behind the site.” Ulbricht’s defense maintains that it is after this point that Ulbricht was brought back into the Silk Road administration fold to be set up as a fall man.

Der-Yeghiayan also testified  that the department’s belief was that Karpeles’ associate Ashley Barr was Dread Pirate Roberts.

-RW

UPDATE:

WSJ with more specifics on testimony at today's court session:

 Jared Der-Yeghiayan, a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security, revealed under questioning that he had signed a sworn affidavit in August 2013 stating he had reason to suspect Mr. Karpelès controlled Silk Road, just months before Mr. Ulbricht’s arrest in October 2013.