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In the months since Jared had started to investigate the case, the Silk Road had become a
phenomenon. It was being written about in the press all over the world on a daily basis, and given
that the site was still running after eighteen months, other potential customers felt more confident
buying drugs and guns, so the customer base was growing rapidly.
The slew of press came with consequences, not just for the leader of the Silk Road, but also for
Jared. All those stories in all those newspapers and blogs meant that other government agents were
learning about the Silk Road, and Jared assumed they would want in on the case.
And he was right.
In the spring of 2012, on a late afternoon, Jared was sitting in his office, sifting through the latest
envelopes customs had intercepted and, like a doctor checking an X-ray, holding up photos of drugs
next to images on the Web site. He had checked in with his wife, Kim, and was trying to wrap things
up to make it to the airport before racing home when his computer sounded a loud DING!, announcing
a new e-mail.
This wasn’t just any e-mail. The system that agents use to keep records of their cases is designed
to notify each agent when someone else in the government has read their specific case files. The e-
mail that Jared had just received told him that two people at Homeland Security in Baltimore, a sister
office within the same agency, were at that very moment reading one of his case files. As he sat there
looking at the message on his screen and wondering what was going on, there was another DING!
And another. Soon it was like an old lady had hit the jackpot in Las Vegas. DING! DING! DING!
DING! DING!
As Jared sat there perplexed as to what was going on, things grew even stranger. His supervisor
in Chicago received an e-mail from another supervisor in Baltimore, saying that a group of agents
wanted to come out to the Windy City to talk about the Silk Road case. To add to this bizarre, out-ofthe-blue
request, the Baltimore agents were bringing their U.S. attorney with them.
This could mean only one thing: Baltimore wanted in on Jared’s case. But Jared didn’t want
anyone impinging on his hunt for the Dread Pirate Roberts. This was his case, not theirs, and other
people would surely drag him down in his pursuit. He also knew that coming out and saying that
would only lead to infighting, which would only lead to a “deconfliction meeting,” where someone
very high up in government decides who gets to run a case. That wasn’t a good scenario for Jared. In
a standoff with older agents, he would likely lose.
So Jared and his boss at HSI agreed to a meeting with the Baltimore team at the Dirksen Federal
Building, where Jared had first sold the Chicago U.S. attorney on the Silk Road case.
On the day of the meeting, Jared showed up at the home of the fifty-ton Flamingo expecting one
or two people from the Baltimore contingent, but instead a small army streamed inside the office,
including agents, assistants, and their own personal Baltimore assistant U.S. attorney, who introduced
himself as Justin.
After some formalities and awkward handshakes, the Baltimore attorney spoke. “Thanks for
meeting with us. We’ve been reading your reports, Jared”—momentarily looking in his direction
—“and you’re doing some really great work, just great reporting in there.”
Jared thought to himself, I know you’ve been reading my fucking reports. I’ve been getting
alerts in my in-box every fifteen minutes for the past few fucking weeks. He kept his rant to himself
for now and instead smiled and nodded.