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The Man Accused of Being Silk Road's 'Variety Jones' Is Fighting Extradition

Last week, Roger Thomas Clark, the man suspected of being a key advisor to the drug marketplace Silk Road, was arrested in Thailand and is the process of being extradited to the United States.
Koh Chang, where Clark was arrested. Image: AP

Last week, Roger Thomas Clark, the man suspected of being a key advisor to the drug marketplace Silk Road, was arrested in Thailand and is the process of being extradited to the United States. On Tuesday, Clark's lawyer gave Motherboard some more details about how his client was arrested, and said that Clark would be fighting the extradition.

"He seemed to be okay except for the fact that he was sleeping on a cement floor with 30 other prisoners in a cell. He complained about not being fed for three days but this is the norm in Thai prisons while they are moving you around," Clark's Bangkok lawyer, Kem Kang, told Motherboard in an email. Kang proved he was Clark's attorney by providing the full, five page extradition request to Motherboard.

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"He does want to fight the extradition charges," Kang continued.

Clark, a 54-year-old Canadian citizen, has been charged with one count of narcotics conspiracy, another of money laundering conspiracy, and is suspected of being "Variety Jones," a senior advisor to Ross Ulbricht, the convicted creator of Silk Road. He could face life in prison.

"Roger Clark, a high-ranking Silk Road operator, served as Ross Ulbricht's closest adviser and confidante as together they facilitated an anonymous global black market for all things illegal," James M. Gibbons, the acting special agent-in-charge of Homeland Security Investigations Chicago who worked on the investigation, said in a press release. "As this arrest proves, the 'long arm of the law' has a great reach—even in cyberspace."

Variety Jones "was the biggest and strongest willed character I had met through the site thus far," Ulbricht wrote in a 2011 journal entry.

Kang relayed further specifics about Clark's arrest.

"On the morning of his arrest last Thursday some immigration officers arrived at his house in Koh Chang Island," he wrote. "They arrested him and made him wait while one of them worked on Roger's computer for two and half hours. This concerned Roger as although he knew there was nothing incriminating on his PC he was concerned as to what the officer might be putting on the PC."

"Roger has also told me that he was always happy to return to the US to answer charges."

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Kang also relayed allegations from Clark of judicial malpractice: that Brian Pearce, a Department of Justice Attaché from US Embassy in Thailand, "called the Canadian Embassy posing as Roger's representative telling them that there was no need for them to come to the prison as Roger was OK," Kang wrote.

Kang then claimed that on Friday morning, Clark was "asked to sign his own deport papers which he refused. So they sent him to court to face a judge but he has yet to see one," Kang said, adding that Clark was delayed from seeing his counsel, and that no one from the Canadian Embassy has seen him yet.

Those claims are unverified, and the United States Department of Justice did not immediately respond to Motherboard's request for comment.

"Roger has also told me that he was always happy to return to the US to answer charges. He has been trying to contact Serrin Turner for the last two years (has copies of emails). He is still happy to return to USA but not under extradition," Kang wrote. (Serrin Turner is an Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and led the prosecution against Ross Ulbricht.)

It's unclear how long Clark will remain in Thailand, especially if he has an opportunity to fight the extradition attempt.

"Tomorrow I will send one of my junior lawyers to buy him some clothes, thin mattress and pillow for his stay," Kang wrote.