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In as many instances as I could, I visited the exact places Ross worked, sitting in the same chair
in the Glen Park library, eating at the same sushi restaurant, and lying on the same patch of grass
where he snapped a photo in Alamo Square. I spoke to hundreds of people from all stages of his life,
from elementary school to college; prom dates and best friends; ex-lovers and one-night stands.
Through a translator in Thailand, I was able to gain more information about the man alleged to be
Variety Jones.
For the law enforcement side of the story, I spent more than 250 hours with the federal agents
who were involved in the hunt for the Dread Pirate Roberts, including the FBI, HSI, IRS, CBP, and
DOJ. I visited their bureaus and offices, the airports they work out of, and the mail facilities where
drugs were discovered. (I even met one of the drug-sniffing dogs, though he didn’t have much to say.)
In addition, Joshua Bearman and Joshua Davis, who spent an additional fifty hours with the DEA and
dozens of hours with one of the site’s employees for a feature in Wired on the Silk Road, contributed
reporting to this book.
For the most minute details I used online weather almanacs to determine the temperature and
wind on particular days, surf reports to understand the height of the waves, flight details to learn if
there was turbulence on a plane, and old Craigslist ads, phone records, travel logs, and several other
digital tools to tell this story as a narrative nonfiction tale.
From the day of Ross’s arrest I was able to gain access to security camera footage of the front of
the Glen Park library. Footage that captures Ross’s last moments as a free man.
While so many people spoke to me for the book, through his family and lawyers, Ross Ulbricht
declined to be interviewed.