Have there been prosecutions for users who only browsed darknet marketplaces like Silk Road?

1. What the major cases prosecuted — and whom they targeted

The landmark Silk Road prosecution targeted the founder and operator, Ross Ulbricht, who was indicted and convicted on charges tied to creating, operating and facilitating criminal sales on the site rather than mere browsing, and the reporting highlights prosecutions focused on operators and vendors as the model law‑enforcement response to darknet markets ^{[1] [5]}. Law enforcement’s large-scale takedowns — for example the 2014 actions that disrupted dozens of hidden services and later operations against successors such as AlphaBay and Silk Road 2.0 — emphasize arrests of administrators and prominent vendors, with agencies boasting arrests and asset seizures rather than prosecutions of passive users ^{[2] [6] [3]}.

2. Buyers have been prosecuted, but typically when there was a transaction or traceable nexus

Multiple sources document prosecutions of people who bought drugs or ran vendor accounts on darknet markets; U.S. prosecutions commonly arise when purchases, shipments, money‑flows or vendor activity can be shown in court papers, indicating government focus on transactional conduct rather than mere access or “browsing” ^{[7] [3] [8]}. Technical tools such as blockchain forensics and undercover operations that trace funds or intercept shipments have been key to building cases against buyers who actually purchased contraband — not against anonymous browsers with no traceable criminal acts ^{[9] [2]}.

3. Claims that “customer data” led to prosecutions exist in secondary reporting but are thin in primary sources

Some reporting and industry writeups assert that seizures of market infrastructure yielded customer lists and that those lists produced prosecutions of customers ^[4]. That claim appears in vendor/industry blogs and antivirus vendor summaries but the provided official sources (FBI press pieces and academic reviews) emphasize arrests of operators, vendors and identifiable transactors after forensic work rather than a clear chain showing prosecutions of people who only visited pages ^{[2] [5]}. This creates an implicit alternative view: authorities may pursue buyers whose identities and purchases are revealed, but the documentation in these excerpts does not prove prosecutions for mere browsing alone ^{[4] [2]}.

4. How law enforcement can turn browsing into evidence — when it happens

Experts and law‑enforcement narratives explain how browsing can become actionable if it converges with additional evidence: operational security mistakes, malware, server seizures that include logs, or on‑chain payments that touch real‑world accounts can identify users and turn passive access into proof of participation or intent ^{[9] [10]}. The sources show that the combination of technical tracing and traditional investigative work is what converts anonymous activity into prosecutable conduct — again underscoring that the crime element typically is the transaction, distribution or other active step rather than mere viewing ^{[9] [10]}.

5. Bottom line and limits of the record provided

Based on the material supplied, the authoritative, well‑documented prosecutions involve operators, vendors and purchasers whose criminal acts could be demonstrated in court; none of the excerpts furnishes a documented, attributable prosecution brought solely for the act of browsing a darknet marketplace without transactions or other criminal conduct ^{[1] [2] [7] [3]}. The reporting does contain assertions that customer lists seized in later takedowns led to prosecutions ^[4], but that claim is not fully substantiated here against primary government filings in the provided set; therefore the strongest, evidence‑backed answer is that prosecutions have targeted active participants, while prosecutions for mere browsing are not shown in these sources.