One of the federal officers charged with investigating the Silk Road marketplace has pled guilty to obstruction of justice and money laundering. US Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges was part of the interagency Baltimore team investigating the online marketplace and took over an administrator account on the service as part of the investigation. Ultimately, Bridges used the account to reset passwords and steal roughly 20,000 bitcoin from various wallets on the service, ultimately redeeming them for $820,000. Bridges' sentencing hearing is set for December 7th.

Bridges acted in concert with Carl Mark Force, a fellow secret service agent who pled guilty in July, after selling the movie rights to his recollections for $240,000. The two agents were charged in March, more than a month after courts found Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht guilty for his role in maintaining the marketplace. Ulbricht's legal team has appealed the conviction, claiming the agents' malfeasance was unreasonably withheld, but because any evidence directly collected by Bridges and Force was withheld during the trial, many experts are skeptical about the appeal's chance of success.