Largest drug trafficker from shuttered ‘Silk Road’ website sentenced in Chicago to 10 years in federal prison

CHICAGO — A European drug trafficker, who used an underground website for worldwide drug sales, was sentenced in federal court Thursday to 10 years in prison for selling millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs for bitcoins.

This sentence resulted from an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Cornelis Jan Slomp, 23, of Woerden, the Netherlands, previously pleaded guilty in April 2014 to conspiracy to import and distribute various controlled substances worldwide. Slomp was also ordered to forfeit $3,030,000 in illegal drug proceeds from his criminal enterprise. Slomp has been in federal custody since his arrest in August 2013.

Slomp, who operated under the username "SuperTrips," conducted more than 10,000 illegal online drug transactions and received about $385,000 in bitcoins as payment for his illegal drug sales. By his own admission, and as confirmed by law enforcement's examination of the data retrieved from the Silk Road server, Slomp was the world's largest drug trafficker on Silk Road.

Shortly before law enforcement agents shut down the Silk Road website in August 2013, HSI special agents arrested Slomp when he flew from the Netherlands to Miami, Florida. At the time, Slomp had arranged to spin off his U.S. trafficking business to his largest U.S.-based wholesale re-distributor of illegal drugs, Angel William Quinones, of Largo, Florida. Quinones, who was also later arrested, has since pleaded guilty in federal court and has been sentenced to 70 months in prison for his role in the scheme.

According to court documents, from March 2012 through about August 2013, Slomp distributed the following items worldwide:

• 104 kilograms of powder 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA);
• 566,000 ecstasy pills containing MDMA;
• four kilograms (8.8 pounds) of cocaine;
• three kilograms (6.6 pounds) of Benzodiazepine;

Slomp also had substantial quantities of amphetamine, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and marijuana, in addition to substantial quantities of methamphetamine, ketamine and Xanax. All were to be distributed on his SuperTrips Silk Road vendor account.