Donald Trump pardons founder of Silk Road dark web drug marketplace
Share:
US President Donald Trump has pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison for running an underground online marketplace where drug dealers and others conducted over $200 million in illicit trade using Bitcoin. Trump pledged to free Ulbricht, 40, who was arrested in 2013 and sentenced in 2015 in what became a landmark US prosecution launched only a few years after the emergence of the popular cryptocurrency.
Ulbricht’s arrest had previously ended a global, black market that was used by more than 100,000 people to buy and sell $214 million worth of illegal drugs and other illicit services. His pardon comes as rioters who stormed the US Capitol four years ago when Joe Biden was elected began to be released from prison on Trump’s first day in office.
"The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern-day weaponisation of government against me," Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. Trump said the pardon was "full and unconditional" adding he called Ulbricht's mother to break the news to her on Tuesday.
Ulbricht has been imprisoned at a federal prison in Arizona, and his attorney said he was hopeful Ulbricht would be released shortly. "After enduring over a decade of incarceration, this decision offers Ross the opportunity to begin anew, to rebuild his life, and to contribute positively to society," Brandon Sample, Ulbricht's clemency attorney, said in a statement.
