Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the darknet marketplace Silk Road, has been granted a presidential pardon by Donald Trump on the first day of his second term as President of the United States.
Ulbricht, who was sentenced to a whole life sentence in 2015, was released immediately after his pardon was made public. Pictures circulating on Twitter/X show him walking from the Arizona prison where he was being held, carrying a bag on his shoulder and a small plant which seems to have been potted in a polystyrene cup. Mr Trump is reported to have informed Ulbricht’s mother of the news personally.
Trump called the sentence Ulbricht received ridiculous, suggesting on the social platform Truth Social that the people behind it were the same ones trying to have him sent to jail.
“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!” the President posted.
Silk Road was an online marketplace that was only accessible on the dark web using the .tor browser. In 2013, it was estimated to have 10,000 products for sale, 70% of which were suspected to be drugs.
Drugs were categorized under the headings Psychedelics, Cannabis, Stimulants, Opioids, Dissociatives, and Steroids. These prohibited items were found to have been shipped globally. The marketplace even provided a guide instructing traders on how to ship packages using a vacuum packing machine.
Ulbricht and his colleagues installed a ‘terms of service’ which prohibited users from trading any items whose purpose is to “harm or defraud”. Legal goods were also bought and sold on the Silk Road, and users were able to leave reviews on products like art, cigarettes and jewellery.
Silk Road operated for over just 2 years and is thought to have generated $183 million in revenue, of which $13 million was earned in commission. All transactions were processed in Bitcoin. Due to the sharp rise in Biotcoin’s value over the period when Silk Road was operational, these figures increased to $1.3 billion and $80 million respectively.
The US Government had been aware of the Silk Road for several years before its removal from the darknet. They attempted to shut it down with a cyber attack in 2013; however, it was only effective for a short period, as the Silk Road was reestablished online soon afterwards.
Ulbricht was arrested on October 1, 2013, and indicted on multiple charges relating to the Silk Road, including a murder-for-hire charge despite the absence of evidence suggesting that any murders had occurred.
On February 4, 2015, Ross was convicted by a jury on seven charges, including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and computer hacking. In May 2015, he received five sentences, which resulted in him spending the rest of his life incarcerated, without the possibility of parole.
Ross’s mum, Lyn Ulbricht, has campaigned tirelessly for his release ever since he was arrested, insisting that his sentence did not reflect the nature of his crime. In an interview published in the print magazine leafie Issue 1 she said that “Ross was young and idealistic, and thought he was helping people. Silk Road hurt people too. It’s a real mix, a complex issue.”
“His intentions were good, but people did get drugs on there, and drugs can harm, but I don’t think he deserves to die in prison for it. I don’t think something you do on a computer and make a marketplace means you should be given a death-in-prison sentence. There should be an opportunity to revisit this.”
Lyn had expressed hope that President Trump would release Ross during his first term in office. “I’m very hopeful because President Trump wants to pardon people. It was a frankly reckless idea but [Ross] did it because he was on fire for freedom as a young guy in his mid-20s who believed in privacy and free markets. Ross never intended harm,” she told Yahoo in 2018.
Dread Pirate Roberts, Ulbricht’s alias on the Silk Road, left this message on the site’s forum before his arrest: “I won’t rest until children are born into a world where oppression, institutional violence and control, world war, and all the other hallmarks of the state are as ancient history as pharaohs commanding armies of slaves. The drug war merely brings to light their nature and shows us who they really are.”
Source Image provided by Lyn Ulbricht
This story first appeared on leafie, view here
Author: Kevin Dinneen
