Top Silk Road drug dealer was an informant, then got arrested

Earlier this month, we reported on the arrest and indictment of a Washington state couple that had been selling on The Silk Road, the infamous Tor-enabled online market.

This week it was revealed that one of the two, Steven Lloyd Sadler, was also a federal informant. Sadler was behind the “Nod” account on Silk Road, one of the top seller accounts on the site, according to the government.

On Monday, The Smoking Gun cited an audio recording from Sadler’s October 2 court hearing, in which a government prosecutor told the judge that “Mr. Sadler has been cooperating, working for the government for the past two months.” But Sadler’s cooperation with the government “abruptly came to an end this morning,” apparently “through reasons unrelated to [Sadler],” the prosecutor added.

SOURCE: arstechnica.com