US President Donald Trump on Tuesday pardoned the creator of the Silk Road dark web marketplace Ross William Ulbricht and called his sentence “ridiculous.”
Trump criticised the severity of Ulbricht’s sentence and said that “the scum” that worked to convict him were some of the “same lunatics” who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against him.
“I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!” he added.
This clemency fulfils Trump’s campaign pledge. During his address at the Libertarian Party’s national convention in Washington, DC, in May 2024, Trump committed to reducing Ulbricht’s sentence upon taking office, reported CNN.
“If you vote for me, on Day 1 I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to a sentence of time served,” Trump said at the time. “He’s already served 11 years. We’re going to get him home.”
Who is Ross William Ulbricht?
Ulbricht had been serving a life sentence for establishing what the Justice Department considered “the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet today.”
The Silk Road operation ended in October 2013 when the FBI arrested Ulbricht after he reportedly revealed his email address online. A court found him guilty in February 2015 of multiple offences including money laundering, drug trafficking and computer hacking.
Ulbricht’s arrest in 2013 ended the operations of what law enforcement officials identified as an unprecedented digital marketplace. This platform enabled approximately 4,000 drug vendors to transition from street-level trading to online operations, reaching over 100,000 customers across multiple nations, including Argentina, Australia, the United States and Ukraine, Guardian reported.
During his three-year management of Silk Road, Ulbricht accumulated $18m in bitcoins through commission fees from the platform, which featured extensive product listings categorised under “Cannabis”, “Psychedelics” and “Stimulants”. Operating under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts” – a character from The Princess Bride – he facilitated drug transactions exceeding $183m in value. Law enforcement officials reported that several fatalities were linked to substances purchased through the Silk Road platform.
What is Silk Road?
The Silk Road platform evolved into the Internet’s most advanced criminal marketplace, functioning as an extensive black-market exchange where users regularly traded illegal drugs and various unlawful goods and services. During its operational period, Silk Road facilitated thousands of drug dealers and illegal vendors in distributing vast quantities of drugs and other illicit items to over 100,000 customers, whilst enabling money laundering of hundreds of millions in illegal proceeds, US justice department said in a statement.
Ulbricht intentionally ran Silk Road as a platform for anonymous illegal trade beyond law enforcement’s reach. He implemented two primary anonymisation methods: operating on the “Tor” network, a specialised Internet infrastructure concealing users’ IP addresses, and incorporating a Bitcoin payment system to obscure user identities and locations during transactions.
As of September 23, 2013, Silk Road’s homepage featured approximately 13,000 controlled substance listings under categories including “Cannabis,” “Dissociatives,” “Ecstasy,” “Intoxicants,” “Opioids,” “Precursors,” “Prescription,” “Psychedelics,” and “Stimulants.” Between November 2011 and September 2013, law enforcement conducted over 60 undercover purchases of illegal substances from vendors across multiple countries, including the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Austria, and France.
Six documented overdose deaths worldwide have been connected to Silk Road’s narcotics trade. These included Jordan M., a 27-year-old Microsoft employee found deceased at his computer whilst logged into Silk Road, and two 16-year-olds, Preston B. from Perth, Australia, and Alejandro N. from Camino, California, who died from synthetic LSD purchased on the platform. Additional casualties included Bryan B., aged 25, from Boston, Massachusetts, Scott W., aged 36, from Australia, and Jacob B., aged 22, from Australia.