On Tuesday a Washington state man was arrested by federal authorities in Seattle's Bellevue suburb for allegedly helping to run Silk Road 2.0, the anonymous online marketplace for illicit goods that sprang up after the original Silk Road was seized by federal authorities in 2013.

In a complaint dated January 17, 2015 [PDF], federal authorities said Brian Richard Farrell, 26, admitted to them that he went by "DoctorClu" on Silk Road 2.0, and when he was questioned he told them that he was considered "'Defcon's' right hand man." Defcon was the interim leader of Silk Road 2.0 (which was seized in November when the feds arrested Blake Benthall , who they alleged to be the person behind the Defcon screen name). (Ars spoke to DoctorClu in an interview in June about the disappearance and return of Silk Road 2.0's original leader Dread Pirate Roberts 2 .)

According to the complaint, when federal agents asked Farrell if he could help them identify other top people who at been involved with Silk Road 2.0, Farrell told them “You're not going to find much of a bigger fish than me.”

The US has charged Farrell with one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, heroine, and methamphetamine.

Special Agent Michael Larson described how the feds found Farrell in a deposition:

Between January 2014 and July 2014, a source of information provided law enforcement with particular IP addresses that had accessed the vendor portion of SR2 [Silk Road 2.0]. A user could not accidentally end up on the vendor portion of SR2. Rather, SR2 administrators/moderators restricted access to the vendor portion of the site to vendors who had conducted a certain amount of transactions. In addition, a user required a username and password to access the vendor portion of SR2.

At the end of July, Homeland Security Investigations in Seattle received a lead on one of the IP addresses and pulled Comcast records to find that the IP address matched the address of one of the investigators' cooperating witnesses. The cooperating witness (abbreviated as CW1 in the complaint) was roommates with Farrell, and said “that he/she had learned about the Silk Road and the 'dark net' from FARRELL,” adding that he was a “computer wizard” and maintained a server in the garage. Farrell also “obsessively” tracked his packages online and “babysat” the mailbox according to CW1's information.

The roommate also provided the feds with a box of Xanax pills that had been addressed to Farrell. On January 2, 2015, agents served a search warrant on Farrell's residence, and confiscated “various computer media, various prescription medications, drug paraphernalia, silver bullion bars valued at $3,900, and approximately $35,000 dollars.

Who is DoctorClu?

When Ars spoke to DoctorClu in June 2014, the Senior Silk Road Administrator spoke highly of his boss, describing the (now retired) Dread Pirate Roberts 2 as “brilliant, egomaniacal, and paranoid,” continuing, “As you got to know DPR2, you could tell very quickly that he was a brilliant man. When you began to learn more about him combined with how he spoke, his hubris turned him into somewhat of an egomaniac.”

Ars' report at the time described how DoctorClu stood up to DPR 2's demands that all senior staff turn over their encryption key along with its associated password so DPR2 could decode their communications in a private senior staff forum. DoctorClu wrote to his superior:

The regurgitation of 'If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear,' is the excuse always thrown at us following catastrophic events. My response to this has always been 'In that case, I will be placing a camera in your shower. You have nothing to hide so there shouldn't be a problem with this.' Privacy is a right we deserve.

DoctorClu apparently fit in well among Silk Road senior staff. While being questioned by federal agents this month, the complaint against Farrell states that he led a denial of service attack on a competitor to Silk Road 2.0 at the end of 2013. After that successful attack, he was offered a position at a rate of about $750 per week and eventually earned $1,750 per week. Farrell said he served as Defcon's spokesman and that other staff members would ask Farrell's permission if Defcon was unavailable.

“Farrell said he did not have complete access to SR2, but that he could change passwords on the site,” the complaint alleges. In a press release, the Department of Justice says that the Silk Road 2.0 has generated approximately $8 million per month since its inception in November 2013.

The Silk Road and its leaders and all the iterations thereof have been perused by federal agents for some time now. The man alleged to be the original leader of the original Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, is facing a trial in a New York District Court this week; you can check out Ars' coverage from the courthouse here.