{"id":7030,"date":"2025-01-22T14:24:12","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T20:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.darkreading.com\/threat-intelligence\/trump-pardons-silk-road-dark-web-drug-market-creator"},"modified":"2025-01-22T14:24:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T20:24:12","slug":"trump-pardons-silk-road-dark-web-drug-market-creator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/2025\/01\/22\/trump-pardons-silk-road-dark-web-drug-market-creator\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Pardons ‘Silk Road’ Dark Web Drug Market Creator"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NEWS BRIEF<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

On just his second day in office, <\/span>President Trump<\/a><\/span> has pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the creator and owner of an underground criminal forum website known for cybercrime and drug trafficking.<\/span><\/p>\n

Known as “Dread Pirate Roberts,” Ulbricht operated the anonymous marketplace, known as “<\/span>Silk Road<\/a><\/span>,” from 2011 to 2013, until law enforcement shut down the site and arrested him in California.<\/span><\/p>\n

At 31, Ulbricht was convicted of distributing narcotics, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to commit computer hackings, conspiring to create fake identities, and laundering money, all of which earned him life in prison without parole \u2014 a harsh sentence that law enforcement insisted would act as a deterrent to others.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Justice Department pursued charges against Ulbricht’s associates, who claimed to have murdered five people on his behalf, though there is no evidence of these murders taking place.<\/span><\/p>\n

Silk Road at the time was described as “the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet” by <\/span>US Attorney Preet Bharara<\/a><\/span>, and it was considered a place for criminals to buy and sell illegal drugs and other illegal goods anonymously and outside the lens of law enforcement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Libertarian activists have supported Ulbricht’s release for years on the premise that Ulbricht’s early writings on his ideas for Silk Road stemmed from his interest in creating a free and anonymous marketplace.<\/span><\/p>\n

In May 2024, <\/span>President Trump<\/a><\/span> promised to commute Ulbricht’s sentence. After being reminded by Ulbricht of his promise via social media platform X, Trump fulfilled this campaign promise.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know 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,” <\/span>Trump posted<\/a><\/span> to his Truth Social site yesterday. “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!”<\/span><\/p>\n

Prior to his sentencing, Ulbricht stated that Silk Road was a costly idea that he “deeply regrets” in a letter to the judge when seeking <\/span>leniency<\/a><\/span>, however, it remains unclear if he continues to maintain these beliefs more than a decade later.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEWS BRIEF On just his second day in office, President<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":7031,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[809],"class_list":["post-7030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dark-reading"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/trump-pardons-silk-road-dark-web-drug-market-creator-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1440&ssl=1",2560,1440,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/trump-pardons-silk-road-dark-web-drug-market-creator-scaled.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/trump-pardons-silk-road-dark-web-drug-market-creator-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/trump-pardons-silk-road-dark-web-drug-market-creator-scaled.jpg?fit=640%2C360&ssl=1",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/trump-pardons-silk-road-dark-web-drug-market-creator-scaled.jpg?fit=640%2C360&ssl=1",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/trump-pardons-silk-road-dark-web-drug-market-creator-scaled.jpg?fit=1536%2C864&ssl=1",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/trump-pardons-silk-road-dark-web-drug-market-creator-scaled.jpg?fit=2048%2C1152&ssl=1",2048,1152,true],"chromenews-featured":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/trump-pardons-silk-road-dark-web-drug-market-creator-scaled.jpg?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1",1024,576,true],"chromenews-large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/trump-pardons-silk-road-dark-web-drug-market-creator-scaled.jpg?resize=825%2C575&ssl=1",825,575,true],"chromenews-medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/trump-pardons-silk-road-dark-web-drug-market-creator-scaled.jpg?resize=590%2C410&ssl=1",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Dark Reading","author_link":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/author\/darkreading\/"},"category_info":"Uncategorized<\/a>","tag_info":"Uncategorized","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/trump-pardons-silk-road-dark-web-drug-market-creator-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1440&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}