This Merced man was ‘one of the largest’ drug dealers on the dark web, DOJ says

A 40-year-old Merced man pleaded guilty Monday to crimes related to selling marijuana on the dark-web market, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.

David Ryan Burchard, 40, of Merced, using the moniker “Caliconnect,” was a “major narcotics vendor” on Silk Road and other dark web marketplaces, including Agora, Abraxas and AlphaBay, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced in a news release.

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and to possession with intent to distribute marijuana, investigators said. Burchard is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill on Oct. 30, and he faces up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

Burchard accepted orders for marijuana and cocaine on dark-web marketplaces and then mailed the narcotics from post offices in Merced and Fresno County to his customers throughout the United States, according to investigators. He was paid primarily in Bitcoin.

Federal authorities say Burchard’s operation was worth more than $1.4 million before the website was shut down, describing him as “one of the largest vendors on the Silk Road.” After federal law enforcement shut down the Silk Road website and arrested its founder in October 2013, Burchard moved his narcotics business to Agora and then to AlphaBay, investigators said.

Dark-web marketplaces are used in computer networks designed to conceal the true IP address, a numeric designation that identifies its location on the Internet, investigators said. Those marketplaces also allow for payments to be made only in the form of digital currency, most commonly in bitcoin.

“While not inherently illegal, digital currency is used by dark-web marketplaces because online transactions in digital currency can be completed without a third-party payment processor and are therefore perceived to be more anonymous and less vulnerable to law enforcement scrutiny,” the release said.

This story was originally published August 7, 2017 at 2:14 PM with the headline "This Merced man was ‘one of the largest’ drug dealers on the dark web, DOJ says."