Earlier this week, federal prosecutors dropped a bombshell in the aftermath of the Silk Road trial: they indicted a Secret Service and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent on criminal charges for wire fraud and money laundering.

As we reported earlier, Shaun Bridges and Carl Force, respectively, were a computer forensics expert and lead undercover agent in charge of communicating with Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR), the operator of the Silk Road site.

This week, Mark Karpeles, the disgraced former owner of the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange site, released a few bizarre messages that he exchanged in April and May 2013 with Force over LinkedIn. At the time, Silk Road would have been about two years old.

His first message, dated April 8, 2013, reads:

The Bitcoin fascinates me! I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. - Carl Mark Force IV

Karpeles wrote back the next day, thanking him and asking how he could help.

Force wrote: "I am exploring other work opportunities. DEA is scheduled for 14 furlough days this year and more for the next fiscal year. The American government and economy will crash in the next five years."

Karpeles did not respond, and Force added two days later: "I wanted to ask you if you could back me on a deal for 250 bitcoin. A sale."

At the time, one bitcoin was selling for about $120—so a sale of 250 bitcoins would have been about $30,000. The French Bitcoin entrepreneur still did not respond.

About a month later on May 7, 2013, Force wrote: "I saw the news yesterday that you won't be partnering with Coinlab."

He was referring to a deal that had collapsed between Coinlab and Mt. Gox, which quickly resulted in a lawsuit.

"Sorry to hear that," he added. "If you are still looking for a US and Canada representative, please keep me in mind."

Then, eight days later, Force posted his final message: "Told you should have partnered with me!"

Karpeles did not immediately respond to Ars' request for comment.

UPDATE 10:31pm CT: Karpeles e-mailed, saying that there was no further correspondence and agreeing with our assessment that it was unusual: "Weird indeed. At first I thought it could be a joke. Being not sure I replied to the LinkedIn invite asking what it was about."