A Vancouver man accused of drug trafficking and money laundering through a website on the dark web is now fighting extradition to the United States.
According to the United States District Court, from about November 2011 up to about September 2013, James Ellingson sold “large quantities of narcotics through the ‘Silk Road’ online marketplace under the Silk Road usernames ‘MarajuanaIsMyMuse’ (MMIM) and ‘Lucydrop’.”
Previously, U.S. prosecutors described Silk Road, which was shut down in 2013, as “an unprecedented one-stop online shopping mall where the supply of drugs was virtually limitless, enabling nearly 4,000 drug dealers to expand their markets from the sidewalk to cyberspace, selling drugs on a never-before-seen scale to more than 100,000 buyers in markets stretching from Argentina to Australia, from the United States to Ukraine.”
Ellingson appeared in Vancouver Supreme Court on Monday with the Crown outlining evidence that he had access to a username and password for the website in his personal email and was a principal operator of the site.
Crown alleged that recently unsealed court documents from the U.S. show MMIM sold drugs online paid for in Bitcoin. The Bitcoin then was sent allegedly through intermediaries to a crypto exchange trading account managed by Ellingson.
The defence argued that there is no direct evidence of narcotics sales through the website and the facts and law do not support the request for extradition.
Ultimately, if the judge agrees to extradition, it is the minister of justice and attorney general of Canada who will make the final decision.
Ellingson. 49, is facing three counts in U.S. district court for drug trafficking and money laundering.
Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for running the underground online marketplace.
U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned Ulbricht on Jan. 21, 2025, writing on his social media platform, Truth Social, “The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me.”