It's worth comparing this account with Joshuah Bearman's reporting in Wired in May: http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-2/. The NYT article describes a frustrated IRS agent (Alford) who strongly suspects Ulbricht is DPR and struggles in vain to get anybody on the investigation to listen.
In Wired's version of events, however, Alford's sleuthing had turned up the email address "rossulbricht@gmailcom", but "[t]he IRS didn’t know what any of this meant, so that’s where it ended. The info sat in a case file until dumb luck put Alford in Tarbell’s lab ..."
The NYT's and Wired's depiction of Alford's role in the case seem at odds.
> "Both agents declined to comment for this article, but according to two people briefed on the investigation..."
What are the odds the "two people" are "both agents"? That's like the lamest off the record attribution ever. Also amazing that some random agent using Google broke the case. Apparently anyone could have figured out who DPR was.
> Apparently anyone could have figured out who DPR was.
I think that's the most interesting part. Obviously not just everyone would have the knowledge that he would log in as DPR from a coffee shop a few hundred feet from his apartment, but they could still place him as a strong suspect based on his posts as altoid that identify himself and mention Silk Road. Something that even the FBI didn't do.
I tried to use google to find his post as altoid to no avail. Maybe it was taken down.
Why is an IRS agent working with the DEA to find the proprietor of an illegal drug market? It's not like the IRS is going to ask for corporate profit tax on Silk Road's earnings.
Except if you read the article it wasn't about tax evasion or even taxes. It was about an IRS tax agent using Google search and background checks to find a suspect.
Classy of him to refrain from pointing out that he probably had trouble getting people to take his ideas seriously at least partly because he was black.
For all we know based on the article, the people who wouldn't take him seriously were also black. The article puts the blame squarely on institutional infighting which has apparently been a problem for a very long time. Maybe that's actually the cause here.
Also - and slighly off topic - it's really amazing just how alive and well the old one-drop rule is. Alford is described as half-black, half-Filipino. But I gather most readers come away from the article thinking of him as black. I doubt anyone would come away from the article just calling him a Filipino. I'm biracial myself, so I always find this interesting.
[+] [-] deisner|10 years ago|reply
In Wired's version of events, however, Alford's sleuthing had turned up the email address "rossulbricht@gmailcom", but "[t]he IRS didn’t know what any of this meant, so that’s where it ended. The info sat in a case file until dumb luck put Alford in Tarbell’s lab ..."
The NYT's and Wired's depiction of Alford's role in the case seem at odds.
[+] [-] anonbanker|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swartkrans|10 years ago|reply
What are the odds the "two people" are "both agents"? That's like the lamest off the record attribution ever. Also amazing that some random agent using Google broke the case. Apparently anyone could have figured out who DPR was.
[+] [-] Nicholas_C|10 years ago|reply
I think that's the most interesting part. Obviously not just everyone would have the knowledge that he would log in as DPR from a coffee shop a few hundred feet from his apartment, but they could still place him as a strong suspect based on his posts as altoid that identify himself and mention Silk Road. Something that even the FBI didn't do.
I tried to use google to find his post as altoid to no avail. Maybe it was taken down.
[+] [-] em3rgent0rdr|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] generalseven|10 years ago|reply
What kind of "Drug Lord" orders fake IDs to his home or posts his own email address to an online forum?
[+] [-] revelation|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhales|10 years ago|reply
He's an enthusiastic, misguided, bureacratic cog.
[+] [-] smadge|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 55555|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|10 years ago|reply
Why not?
IRS doesn't care if the activity is illegal or not. See for example this slate article describing how sex workers declare income.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...
[+] [-] moioci|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mschuster91|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nicholas_C|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Estragon|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daviddaviddavid|10 years ago|reply
Also - and slighly off topic - it's really amazing just how alive and well the old one-drop rule is. Alford is described as half-black, half-Filipino. But I gather most readers come away from the article thinking of him as black. I doubt anyone would come away from the article just calling him a Filipino. I'm biracial myself, so I always find this interesting.
[+] [-] smadge|10 years ago|reply