- President Donald Trump has signed a “full and unconditional” pardon for Ross Ulbricht
- The Silk Road operator had received two life sentences and a further 40 years
- Trump said the same “lunatics” were behind the fight against him
President Trump has signed a “full and unconditional” pardon for Silk Road founder and operator Ross Ulbricht.
Silk Road was a notorious dark web marketplace that sold illegal drugs, hacking tools and stolen passports while operating between 2011 and 2013.
Ulbricht, who has been in prison since 2015, was arrested in 2013 and later convicted in 2015 on charges of conspiracy to commit drug trafficking, money laundering and computer hacking. The result was two life sentences and an additional 40 years without parole.
Trump pardons Silk Road operator
The president informed Ulbricht’s mother about the pardon via a phone call, he stated on TRUTH Social.
“I just called Ross William Ulbricht’s mother to tell her that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement that has supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon for her son, Ross,” post read.
Trump described the sentencing as “ridiculous,” adding that the same “lunatics” who convicted Ulbricht were also involved in “the modern weaponization of the government against [himself].”
Silk Road was a dark web site accessible through the open source, decentralized Tor browser. It supported anonymized transactions via Bitcoin — something he stated during his sentencing was important to his desire to “empower people to make choices in their lives and have privacy and anonymity.”
The site is believed to have generated more than $200 million in drug sales during its short two-year lifespan, but Ulbricht acknowledged the site’s unintended consequences. Court documents also indicated that the site had close to a million registered users.
“I was trying to help us move toward a freer and more just world,” he said in 2021 (via Silicon ANGLE).
Ulbricht, who went by the pseudonym ‘Dread Pirate Roberts’, was also accused of soliciting six murders-for-hire, but no evidence was found.
The now president had previously promised to reverse Ulbricht’s sentence immediately if re-elected, which Ulbright shared with X on May 26, 2024.
No further comments from Trump or Ulbricht have been shared at this time.
