The Silk Road, a popular online black market, used by thousands of drug dealers, was shut down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The alleged man behind the site, who identified himself as 'Dread Pirate Roberts,' was arrested on Tuesday afternoon.

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Ross William Ulbricht, is believed to be the alleged mastermind behind the lucrative website, which to date has a revenue of over 9.5 million Bitcoins, approximately $1.2 billion according to the FBI. The 29-year-old University of Texas graduate, has been charged with narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. According to a Forbes reported that the government believes that Ulbricht may have even used the site to arrange an assassination on a user attempting to extort him. These allegations have not been confirmed, although Ulbricht was told that the murder had been carried out.

Initially launched in 2011, the site became a booming marketplace, where people could buy and sell drugs as well as other illicit goods with the comfort of using the anonymity software Tor to protect their identity. TechCrunch reported that as of July 23, 2013, there over 950 thousand registered user accounts, however this number does not reflect the number of actual users. 

This arrest comes nearly two months after DPR engaged in an anonymous interview with Forbes and was considered a one-of-a-kind drug lord. He shed light on the history of the Silk Road, his predecessor who started the company and eventually handed it over to him, as well as the business structure of Silk Road.

READ: Flesh-Eating Drug Krokodil Found In The U.S. 

Shortly after this interview, Forbes dug deeper into what made Silk Road such an appealing site: the Bitcoin. They bought small amounts of marijuana from three different Bitcoin-based black markets. After a few weeks they set Sarah Meklejohn, a Bitcoin-focused computer science researcher at the University of California at San Diego, on their trail of narcotics purchases. 

Through the digital breadcrumbs left behind these online drug buys were visible to practically anyone with the time or interest to look. 

According to Information Week, Ulbricht's arrest seems to have been made possible by a routine border control check of a package containing fake identity documents sent from Canada to Ulbricht's San Francisco address.