Police: Queensbury shop owner bought drugs on Silk Road website

Nicholas C. Moffitt, 24, faces six felony charges after an investigation by the Warren County Sheriff’s Office found that he was allegedly selling drugs, including heroin, that he was buying on an underground black market website known as The Silk Road, officials said.

Moffitt is co-owner of The Tech Guys on Route 9 in Queensbury, across the road from WalMart, and he was arrested at the store Aug. 7 after police raided it and seized quantities of heroin and the prescription drug Xanax without a prescription, according to the Warren County Sheriff’s Office.

The name The Silk Road refers to an ancient trading route linking Europe to Asia, Africa and the Mediterranean, but investigators say the website — used only through special secure web browsers with approval of the website operator and an electronic currency known as Bitcoin — is increasingly being used these days by local residents to purchase drugs.

Warren County sheriff’s Sgt. Tony Breen said police are hearing more about use of the site, which allows buyers to log on, place an order and have drugs from marijuana to steroids and heroin shipped to an address.

Because the site uses services that hide Internet protocol addresses and other identifying information, and an anonymous currency in Bitcoin, users believe police can’t follow their activity.

Sheriff’s Investigator Anthony Bruno, though, said police do have ways to track activity from the site.

“He was having drugs shipped to his business on Miller Hill,” Breen said, of Moffitt.

Moffitt is also accused of making two illegal sales of the prescription medication Suboxone from his home on Dix Avenue in Queensbury in March and April, according to court records.

Sheriff’s officers worked with the U.S. Postal Service’s postal inspectors to track suspicious packages to the store, he said.

When officers raided The Tech Guys store on Aug. 7 and seized drugs, they found a computer logged in to The Silk Road website. Officers looked through it and found more than 500 different offerings of cocaine for sale, Breen said.

“There were ratings of sellers and everything. It’s like an eBay for drugs,” Breen said. “It had every drug you could imagine.”

The co-owner of the store, Brandon Vanderwerker, 31, of Queensbury was also charged, and faces a misdemeanor count of seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance for allegedly possessing Xanax at the store without a prescription. He was released, pending prosecution in Queensbury Town Court.

A call to the store was not returned Friday.

Moffitt is being held in Warren County Jail for lack of bail.