Irish Silk Road suspect extradited to US: prosecutors

A 30-year-old Irish man accused of working for now defunct "dark web" marketplace Silk Road has been extradited to the United States to face charges in New York, four years after his arrest, prosecutors have announced.

Gary Davis, who went by the alias "Libertas," was allegedly a Silk Road administrator in 2013 -- and was paid a weekly salary to carry out duties that included resolving disputes between drug dealers and buyers on the site.

He is charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute narcotics, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The Wicklow man, who was arrested in January 2014, appeared before a Manhattan federal court yesterday.

"Thanks to our partner agencies here and abroad, Davis now faces justice in an American court," said Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman.

Until the FBI shut it down in October 2013, the US government called Silk Road "the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet" used by vendors in more than 10 countries in North America and Europe.

Texan mastermind Ross Ulbricht was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for running the online enterprise that sold USD 200 million in drugs worldwide.

Operating under the alias "Dread Pirate Roberts," Ulbricht amassed USD 13 million in commissions by making the purchase of heroin, cocaine and crystal meth as easy as shopping online at eBay or Amazon, the government said.

His four-week trial was considered a landmark case in the murky world of online crime and government surveillance.