People hold signs reading “Free Ross” as Donald Trump arrives to address the Libertarian National Convention in Washington, DC, May 25, 2024. Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the online marketplace Silk Road, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2015.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
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Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
President Trump fulfilled a campaign promise made to Libertarian supporters on his second day back in office by pardoning the former creator and owner of an underground e-commerce site known for drug trafficking.
Ross Ulbricht, also known as “Dread Pirate Roberts,” operated the anonymous digital marketplace known as Silk Road between 2011 and 2013, when law enforcement shut down the site and arrested him in a California Public Library.
“I just called Ross William Ulbricht’s mother to let her know that in her honor and in honor of the libertarian movement, which has supported me so strongly, I had the pleasure of signing a full pardon and “unconditional support for his son, Ross,” Trump posted Tuesday on his Truth Social website. “The scum who worked to convict him were some of the same crazy people who were involved in the modern weaponization of the government against me. He was sentenced to two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!”
At the time of his sentencing in San Francisco in 2015, Ulbricht was 31 years old. He was convicted of distributing narcotics, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to commit computer hacking, and conspiracy to create false identities and money laundering. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department filed charges against Ulbricht’s compatriots who claimed to have committed five murders in his name, although the government could never prove that these murders actually occurred.
In an indictment, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara described the Silk Road as a meeting place for criminals hoping to “buy and sell illegal drugs and other illicit goods and services anonymously and out of reach.” law enforcement.”
He also described it as “the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet” at the time. He claimed that Ulbricht made tens of millions of dollars from the site. Law enforcement went to great lengths to investigate and apprehend Ulbricht and his supporters, including infiltrating the site and seizing a server in Iceland.
Ulbricht’s early writings on the ideas behind the Silk Road emphasized his desire to create a free and anonymous market, to “use economic theory as a means of abolishing the use of coercion and aggression among the “humanity,” according to a public post on LinkedIn. To access the site, users had to use anonymity software called Tor and pay with Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency where all transactions are recorded online.
These principles are aligned with libertarian political philosophy, which generally advocates the protection of individual freedoms.
Libertarian activists have supported Ulbricht’s release for years, organizing around the “Free Ross” banner and describing Ulbricht as a young, “peace-loving” Eagle Scout who made mistakes, rather than as “a dangerous kingpin “, according to his supporters’ web page. . They argue that his life sentence is an example of government overreach.
President Trump has shown himself to be sensitive to the concerns of libertarians. He promised to commute Ulbricht’s sentence at the Libertarian National Convention in Washington in May 2024 and has moved closer to so-called “techno-libertarians” like Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Trump also publicly promised to make the United States the “crypto capital of the world,” supporting Bitcoin’s core users and supporters.
Ulbricht, for his part, took to social media to celebrate Trump’s election victory and remind him of his promise. A week after the election, he wrote on X that he “could finally see the light of freedom at the end of the tunnel.”
