A Brisbane man accused of running online "black-market drug bazaar" Silk Road was a highly-paid Queensland prison manager at the time.
US prosecutors allege Peter Phillip Nash, 41, was the primary moderator for discussion forums on the website, which was used by drug dealers to distribute hundreds of kilograms of illicit drugs to more than 100,000 buyers worldwide.
Nash was arrested in Brisbane by Australian Federal Police in December and faces extradition to the US.
It has now emerged Nash had been a senior manager at the Wacol Prison, west of Brisbane, when he was allegedly running Silk Road.
A Queensland Government Gazette published in October 2011 shows Nash had been employed in the prison's forensic disability service for intellectually disabled inmates.
The role paid between $115,928 and $122,611, according to an online job advertisement.
At the time of his arrest, Nash was being investigated by the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) for allegedly smuggling a sex offender out of jail for a takeaway meal, News Corp Australia reports.
Since January 2013, Nash was allegedly employed by Silk Road's San Fransisco-based owner Ross William Ulbricht and went by the aliases "Batman73" and "Anonymousasshit", prosecutors allege.
Nash is among three Silk Road employees charged with one count of conspiracy to launder money, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in US federal prison.
The trio are also charged with narcotics and computer hacking offences.
