The FBI announced that yesterday it arrested Blake Benthall, aka "Defcon," the alleged owner and operator of Silk Road 2.0. Benthall was apprehended in San Francisco and will be presented today in a federal court in the city before Magistrate Judge Jaqueline Scott Corley. Accordingly, Silk Road 2.0 has been seized as of this post.

“As alleged, Blake Benthall attempted to resurrect Silk Road, a secret website that law enforcement seized last year, by running Silk Road 2.0, a nearly identical criminal enterprise," Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. "Let’s be clear—this Silk Road, in whatever form, is the road to prison. Those looking to follow in the footsteps of alleged cybercriminals should understand that we will return as many times as necessary to shut down noxious online criminal bazaars. We don’t get tired.”

The arrest comes roughly a year after the feds arrested Ross Ulbricht, the alleged original "Dread Pirate Roberts" and operator of Silk Road 1.0. According to the FBI, Benthall is being charged with "one count of conspiring to commit narcotics trafficking, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison; one count of conspiring to commit computer hacking, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison; one count of conspiring to traffic in fraudulent identification documents, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison; and one count of money laundering conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison."

According to the feds, when Silk Road 2.0 was launched, it was controlled by another "Dread Pirate Roberts," a co-conspirator using the same moniker as Ulbricht from his time operating the original Silk Road. The feds report that in late December 2013, "Benthall, using the moniker 'Defcon,' took over administration of the site and has owned and operated it continuously since that time. In that role, Benthall has controlled and overseen all aspects of Silk Road 2.0, including, among other things: the computer infrastructure and programming code underlying the website; the terms of service and commission rates imposed on vendors and customers of the website; the small staff of online administrators and forum moderators who have assisted with the day-to-day operation of the website; and the massive profits generated from the operation of the illegal business."

Ars interviewed the new Dread Pirate Roberts of Silk Road 2.0 in February 2014, shortly after the site came online. DPR 2.0 at the time identified "Defcon" as second-in-command, a person only DPR 2.0 knew the true identify of. When asked whether Silk Road 2.0 could be taken down as easily as its predecessor, DPR 2.0 said that only nabbing him would bring down the site:

Can the new Silk Road site be taken down as easily as the previous incarnation? DPR 2.0: There is only one person in the world that knows who [my second in command] “Defcon” is—me. So unless the feds have me they can never take down the Road, because as soon as I am missing he knows to just move servers and hit the killswitch on my access. Just think how much the FBI will be squirming in their seats and red-faced again if they could arrest the Dread Pirate Roberts and the Road continues to function in their face.

As of this writing, the Silk Road 2.0 has been taken down by the feds (screenshot above) through a simple instance of social engineering. Ars will continue to monitor the situation involving Benthall and his time in court today, and we'll update this post should new information become available.

UPDATE, 11:50am CT: Ars is on the scene at the San Francisco federal court where Benthall is appearing. As such, Senior Business Editor Cyrus Farivar confirmed Benthall's appearance and LinkedIn profile. Benthall lists his last job as a "Web construction worker" in San Francisco for Codespike, a tech incubator run from home according to Forbes.