LONDON â€" Four men arrested in Britain on drug charges are being investigated over their suspected ties to Silk Road, an online marketplace that has been linked to narcotics sales and other illegal activity, British officials said Tuesday.
The National Crime Agency of Britain said that it took four men into custody last week hours after the arrest in San Francisco of Ross Ulbricht, who American authorities say was the owner of Silk Road. Mr. Ulbricht, 29, was charged last week with conspiracy to commit narcotics trafficking, computer hacking and other charges.
The arrests represent the first major initiative by the N.C.A., a newly formed national police agency that the British government hopes will serve as the equivalent to the F.B.I. in the United States. N.C.A. officials say they are planning a wider campaign to target crime in the dark corners of the Internet.
“These arrests send a clear message to criminals; the hidden Internet isn’t hidden and your anonymous activity isn’t anonymous,†said Keith Bristow, the N.C.A.’s director general. “We know where you are, what you are doing and we will catch you.â€
The four men were taken into custody after N.C.A. officers, working closely with American law enforcement, identified several people they believed to be “significant users†of Silk Road, British police said. Their identities weren’t released on Tuesday.
In documents last week, American prosecutors in New York said Silk Road was used to sell a variety of illegal drugs, including ecstasy, marijuana and heroin. Users also anonymously offered computer hacking services, forged documents and pirated movies, authorities in the United States said.
The only form of payment accepted on the Web site was bitcoins, a virtual currency. American officials seized about 26,000 bitcoins valued at about $3.6 million last week and shut down the online marketplace.
A public defender who represented Mr. Ulbricht at a hearing in San Francisco last week after his arrest has declined to comment on the case.
