Drop-out took over infamous £73m porn and drugs website
‘Cloak of anonymity’
An accountancy student took over one of the dark web’s most notorious drug sites and ran a £73million operation from his university digs. Teenager Thomas White was the head of the Silk Road site, which became infamous for selling drugs, weapons and pornography.
At the height of the operation, investigators believe White made hundreds of thousands of pounds by charging up to 5 per cent commission on drug trades. The teenager boasted he was a ‘big-time money launderer’ shifting profits of £10,000 a week for criminal gangs through Bitcoin.
By the time he went to Liverpool John Moores University, White was making so much money he dropped out after the first term.
The IT entrepreneur told one of his administrators he would like to set up a website for paedophiles trading child abuse images ‘because there is money to be made from these people’.
But yesterday the former student from an affluent background in Liverpool began a five-year jail sentence.
White was a 17- year- old straight-A schoolboy when he started taking Modafinil – a drug licensed to treat narcolepsy – as a study aid.
Initially he bought the drug online from a supplier in India, but agreed, for a discount, to become a UK distributor.
Within months White had moved from drug user to a Thomas White: Retired at 19 major drug supplier selling MDMA and drug testing kits.
At 18, White became the head of the Silk Road site, taking a slice of drug trades worth 96million US dollars.
With the cash, the self-taught computer expert became one of Britain’s first Bitcoin traders, moving out of his student digs into a £1,700-a-month flat in Liverpool. The 19-year-old hired administrators to help run the site, urging them to take Modafinil to boost performance. He even recruited a US doctor to offer advice to drug users on the site.
The Silk Road site had been shut down in October 2013 when its founder Ross Ulbricht was arrested on charges of money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic drugs and attempted murder. Within weeks, White set up Silk Road 2.0, taking on Ulbricht’s mantle, Dread Pirate Roberts, to offer drugs, weapons and illegal pornography for sale.
David Jackson, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court: ‘This defendant was the guiding mind behind the site.’
But after running it for a year, White decided to ‘retire’ aged 19 as he feared suffering the same fate as his predecessor who is serving a double life sentence.
Months later, White was arrested by the national Crime Agency in 2014. But due to the sophisticated level of encryption he used it was years before investigators could untangle his web of data.
Hundreds of indecent images of children were also discovered on an encrypted laptop at his flat, along with a gold bar and Bitcoins worth £192,000.
Yesterday White, now 24, was sentenced to five years and four months after pleading guilty to supplying MDMA, money laundering and making indecent images of children.
The drug kingpin is the son of a successful businessman and former cricket club chairman. He enjoyed a middle class upbringing and his family hoped that he might follow his father’s footsteps into business.
John Williams, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: ‘His family thought he was running a legitimate business as a Bitcoin trader, but in reality all the money he derived from the Silk Road ...
‘Thomas White thought he could get away with any crime under the cloak of anonymity, be it selling illegal drugs or viewing horrific images of children.’