The founder of dark web criminal marketplace Silk Road was pardoned by President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening, fulfilling a campaign promise to a portion of his supporters.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt shared a message from Trump himself in which he said he called Ross Ulbricht’s mother and told her 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.”
The president also used it as an opportunity to criticize federal prosecutors in general: “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!”
Ulbricht’s family offered a statement of “immense gratitude” to Trump and other supporters on the website where they’ve tracked his case.
Ulbricht has served more than 11 years after being convicted of several charges related to his operation of Silk Road — a popular platform used to sell drugs, stolen information and other illegal services. He was given a life sentence after being convicted of distributing narcotics, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to commit computer hacking, conspiring to traffic in false identity documents, and conspiring to commit money laundering.
Known as “Dread Pirate Roberts,” Ulbricht created the platform in January 2011 and ran it until it was shut down by law enforcement in October 2013.
At Ulbricht’s sentencing in 2015, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara called him a “a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people’s addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people.”
He went from “hiding his cybercrime identity to becoming the face of cybercrime and as today’s sentence proves, no one is above the law,” Bharara said.
Drug dealers used Silk Road to ship and sell hundreds of kilograms of narcotics and launder the funds gained through cryptocurrency transactions. One of the deaths cited by Bharara involved a Microsoft employee whose body was found in front of a computer logged into Silk Road.
The site also offered hacking services, malware, fake legal documents like passports and pirated content. Prosecutors said Ulbricht earned at least $13 million in commissions from running the site.
In his final months running the site, Ulbricht also paid $650,000 to have several people killed after allegations emerged that someone planned to leak the identities of criminals using the Silk Road platform. The murders were never committed, according to law enforcement.
“There must be no doubt that you cannot run a massive criminal enterprise and because it occurred over the Internet minimize the crime committed on that basis,” U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest said at his sentencing.
The dark web site was popular because it was anonymized and allowed transactions to be conducted through the use of bitcoin. Since his imprisonment, Ulbricht has become an icon among cryptocurrency advocates and members of the Libertarian Party who believe he was unfairly charged.
Trump pledged to pardon him in May 2024 as a gesture to the Libertarian Party, who in-turn backed his candidacy for president.
It is unclear whether other people connected to Silk Road also will be pardoned. Law enforcement agencies gained access to more than 16,000 names and addresses from the servers connected to Silk Road.
Participants involved in the platform continue to be charged, with one being convicted as recently as 2023.
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Jonathan Greig
is a Breaking News Reporter at Recorded Future News. Jonathan has worked across the globe as a journalist since 2014. Before moving back to New York City, he worked for news outlets in South Africa, Jordan and Cambodia. He previously covered cybersecurity at ZDNet and TechRepublic.
