The seedy site known as eBay for heroin

Jared Der-Yeghiayan, a Department of Homeland Security special agent, told jurors in Ulbricht's conspiracy and drug- trafficking trial in Manhattan that Silk Road had 13,810 listings of drugs for sale around the time it was shut down.

Buyers could click on a listing for "1 gram of Blue Magic Black Tar Heroin (85% pure)" or "0.5 Gr Uncut Crack Cocaine!!" and add the purchase to a virtual shopping cart, pay with bitcoins, then wait for the drugs in the mail.

Prosecutors said about 95 per cent of Silk Road's business came from drug sales.

Ulbricht is also charged in connection with the site's sale of fake identification documents and computer hacking assistance. He got his online identity "Dread Pirate Roberts" from a character in the film , according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors claim Ulbricht also tried to arrange the murders of at least six people who threatened his multi-million-dollar business. The government doesn't believe any murders were carried out.

Ulbricht is charged separately in federal court in Baltimore for one of those alleged murder-for-hire plots.

Pleading not guilty, Ulbricht faces up to life in prison if convicted of the trial's most serious charge, internet drug trafficking.

In his opening statement, Ulbricht's lawyer said his client started Silk Road in 2011 as an "economic experiment" and left after a few months. He said Ulbricht was set up as a "fall guy" for the site's operators.

Der-Yeghiayan said he began the Silk Road investigation as part of his work tracking drug shipments through Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. He told the jury about an online undercover buy of 1,000 ecstasy tablets using Silk Road.

Silk Road required that all transactions be made in bitcoins to keep the buyers' and sellers' identities secret, Der-Yeghiayan testified. Der-Yeghiayan said Silk Road held bitcoin payments in escrow until the buyer received the order and completed the transaction.

He said the site had customer-assistance employees who helped moderate disputes between buyers and sellers.

Once a transaction was complete, the sellers could go to a bitcoin exchange and trade the virtual currency anonymously for gold, dollars or another currency, the agent added.

Der-Yeghiayan said he was also an undercover Silk Road site administrator for several months, working 10 to 12 hours a day on an Apple MacBook in exchange for about US$1,000 a week in bitcoins.

He said he had frequent online chats, using the name "cirrus", with Dread Pirate Roberts and other Silk Road employees.

The agent told jurors that Ulbricht was online as Dread Pirate Roberts on his laptop in San Francisco's Glen Park Library on Oct. 1, 2013, corresponding with Der-Yeghiayan as cirrus, who was in a nearby café. Der-Yeghiayan signaled other agents who arrested Ulbricht, taking care to seize his computer before he could log out, he said.

Der-Yeghiayan is expected to conclude his testimony later this week.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: The seedy site known as eBay for heroin

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