'Silk Road' online drug market rooted in Chicago

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The ABC7 I-Team is learning new information about the "Silk Road," an illicit internet site where cocaine, heroin and other street drugs could be easily ordered and shipped right to your home. A federal investigation that began in Chicago has led to a major arrest.

"Silk Road" is the name given to underground websites with huge inventories of illegal drugs, from prescription narcotics to hallucinogens. Silk Road 60610, the investigation started more than two years ago when Homeland Security customs agents at O'Hare Airport intercepted Ecstasy shipments from overseas.

In the latest arrest along the Silk Road, authorities say a California man was selling $8 million a month in drugs, all from his laptop.

Blake Benthall, 26, also know by the military readiness acronym "DEFCON" is being held without bond in San Francisco. Federal authorities say this was Benthall's business model: the Silk Road anonymous market where just about any illegal drug in the world was for sale and shipping to the United States.

Even though the eccentric Benthall is from California, he will be prosecuted in New York. U.S. Homeland Security officials say the investigation is rooted at O'Hare Airport, where in April 2012, customs agents inspecting packages from overseas, began finding envelopes of Ecstasy pills and other drugs originating from the Netherlands.

Behind those shipments through Chicago is Cornelis Jan Slomp, who uses the alias "Super Trips". At age 23, the Netherlands native became the world's most prolific online drug dealer believed by some in law enforcement. Slomp pleaded guilty last April to selling millions in illegal pills- many stamped with his personal logo.

Federal authorities in Chicago have been on guard more than a decade for pill shipments from Amsterdam after a series of Ecstasy overdoses here, with some victims found dead outside popular nightclubs.

Even before the Silk Highway began, the road to Ecstasy ran between Amsterdam and Chicago. An I-Team overseas investigation in 1997 found the source of the drug pipeline that eventually grew into the Silk Highway.

Some of the attention to these Silk Road cases comes because many of the drug deals are paid with online bitcoins. The latest Silk Road suspect, Benthall, faces conspiracy narcotics charges that carry possible life in prison.

The Chicago case against Jan Slomp will be back in court next month. He faces 40 years, but prosecutors are recommending less in exchange for his cooperation.