Silk Road was like a black market Amazon.com where you could buy drugs, hacking tools, forged documents, and more. The site operated for three years without consequence, protected by the anonymizing Tor network and the forced use of hard-to-trace virtual currency Bitcoin.
It seemed untouchable; its owner, the pseudonymous Dread Pirate Roberts, even declared the war on drugs over and himself the victor in an interview with Forbes. Then in October of 2013, federal agents shut down the site and arrested the man they believe to be responsible.