Online drug deals made Dutch man ‘SuperTrips’ a bitcoin fortune
'SuperTrips' to plead guilty in US over cocaine and Ecstasy he trafficked via Silk Road website
Using the alias SuperTrips, a 22-year-old Dutch man dealt drugs including cocaine, Ecstasy and LSD for millions of dollars worth of the virtual currency bitcoin through a black-market website, a US prosecutor said.
Cornelis Jan Slomp of Woerden, the Netherlands, facing a single drug-trafficking conspiracy count, agreed to plead guilty, according to a statement issued on Thursday by US prosecutor Zachary Fardon in Chicago and Slomp's lawyer.
He was arrested in Miami last year when a criminal complaint was filed against him. Prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of more than US$3 million in alleged proceeds of his crimes.
Slomp sold the drugs through the now-shuttered Silk Road website, described by the Justice Department as a "sprawling black-market bazaar" for drug-dealing and money laundering.
Ross William Ulbricht, who allegedly ran the site under the name "Dread Pirate Roberts", pleaded not guilty in February to operating a narcotics-trafficking scheme, conspiring to launder money and other crimes.
"In the global black market for all things illegal, Slomp allegedly was a prolific vendor on Silk Road," said Gary Hartwig, the Homeland Security special agent in charge of investigations in Chicago, in a statement issued jointly with Fardon.