State Crime Reports

Largest Drug Trafficker From Shuttered Underground Silk Road Website Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison


Chicago –(ENEWSPF)–May 29, 2015.  A drug trafficker who used the illicit website “Silk Road” for worldwide drug sales was sentenced yesterday to 10 years’ imprisonment for selling millions of dollars’ worth of illegal drugs for bitcoins.  The defendant, Cornelis Jan Slomp, 23, of Woerden, the Netherlands, pled guilty in April 2014 to conspiracy to import and distribute various controlled substances worldwide.  Slomp was also ordered to forfeit $3,030,000 in illegal drug proceeds from his criminal enterprise.  Slomp has been in federal custody since his arrest in August 2013.

“The crime is an extraordinarily serious one given the amounts involved, there’s no question about that,” said U.S. District Court Judge Matthew F. Kennelly said in imposing the sentence.  

Slomp, who operated under the username “SuperTrips,” conducted more than 10,000 illegal online drug transactions and received approximately 385,000 in bitcoins as payment for his illegal drug sales.  By his own admissions and as confirmed by law enforcement’s examination of the data retrieved from the Silk Road server, Slomp was the world’s largest drug trafficker on Silk Road.

Shortly before law enforcement agents shut down the Silk Road web site in August 2013, Chicago Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents arrested Slomp when he traveled from the Netherlands to Miami, Florida.  At the time, Slomp had arranged to spin off his United States illegal drug trafficking business to his largest U.S.-based wholesale re-distributor of illegal drugs, Angel William Quinones, of Largo, Florida.  Quinones, who was later arrested, has since pleaded guilty in federal court in Tampa and has been sentenced to 70 months’ imprisonment for his role in Silk Road drug trafficking activity.

According to court documents, for an eighteen-month period from March 2012 through about August 2013, Slomp distributed worldwide approximately: 104 kilograms of powder 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA); 566,000 ecstasy pills containing MDMA; four kilograms of cocaine; three kilograms of Benzodiazepine; and substantial quantities of amphetamine, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and marijuana, in addition to allowing for substantial quantities of methamphetamine, ketamine, and Xanax to be distributed on his SuperTrips Silk Road vendor account. 

“The public is harmed when illegal drugs are sold in the United States as well as in this district.  This harm to the public is magnified when drug traffickers such as the defendant use sophisticated modern technology to reach larger segments of the population as well as to further conceal their identities and criminal activity.  Here, the defendant used one of the most sophisticated dark websites of its time to sell enormous quantities of illegal drugs to wholesale redistributors, retailers, and users of drugs across the country – indeed, throughout the world – in more than 10,000 transactions,” argued Assistant United States Attorney Andrew S. Boutros in the government’s sentencing memorandum. 

The sentence was announced by Zachary T. Fardon, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Gary Hartwig, Special Agent-in-Charge of HSI Chicago.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew S. Boutros.

Source: justice.gov

 


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