DEA agent pleads guilty to accepting Silk Road funds

A Drug Enforcement Administration agent intimately involved in the Silk Road investigation admitted on Wednesday he secretly accepted bitcoins from the underground website’s operator and illegally took other funds.

Carl Mark Force IV, who was a DEA agent for 15 years, pleaded guilty to money laundering, obstruction of justice and extortion under color of official right, according to the plea agreement, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Force could face up to 20 years in prison on each of the counts.

Force, who was based in Baltimore, was part of a multi-agency task force investigating the Silk Road, an underground marketplace for goods such as drugs and fake ID documents. It was shut down in October 2013.

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