Silk Road creator pardoned by President Trump
Amirmohammad Bagheri, Staff Writer |
In 2011, an online underground marketplace called the “Silk Road” was created by Ross William Ulbricht. This black market went on to generate $1.2 million dollars per month.
What set this market apart from the others was its use of cryptocurrency, which rendered the transactions mostly untraceable. Like many other illegal marketplaces, Silk Road relied on the Tor Network, developed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, to remain hidden from public view.
This network, which uses the “.onion” domain instead of “.com”, is generally inaccessible to regular users. Because of this, separate domains were frequently used by illicit online marketplaces where people could make purchases with little to no concerns about having their cover blown.
Almost anything one could ever think of was being sold on Silk Road. From uranium ores, rocket launchers, various forgeries, and even hitmen, these were just a few of the many criminal goods and services available on the website.
For the item to be shipped, all it took was an account on the website and the selection of an item with its quantity.
For an additional fee, some sellers would even offer a premium “stealth” option, allowing them to further conceal the package from law enforcement during transit.
To catch the mastermind behind Silk Road, law enforcement began their investigation. The first mention of the site was found in a forum post for magic mushroom users on Jan. 27, 2011.
The post read, “I came across this website called Silk Road […] I’m thinking of buying it.”
Two days later, another post was made on a forum called “Bitcoin Talk” by the same user named “Altoid.”
This time, the post read, “Has anyone seen Silk Road yet? It’s kind of like an anonymous Amazon.com. I don’t think they have heroin on there, but they are selling other stuff.”
Some found it suspicious that the same account was promoting the online marketplace using a strategy called “astroturfing.”
Eight months later, the same account posted on Bitcoin Talk again, this time stating that he was looking for an IT professional in the Bitcoin community for a “venture-backed Bitcoin startup company.” At the end of the post, an email was provided for contact in case of any interest in the job. The email read, “rossulbricht@gmail.com.”
Investigators soon started drawing a connection between Ross Ulbricht and the pseudonym of Silk Road operator, Dread Pirate Roberts. When observing Ulbricht’s public Google+ account, they found links leading to YouTube videos posted by the Ludwig von Mises Institute, an organization known for promoting libertarian theories.
This connection became significant because Dread Pirate Roberts had credited Mises for “providing the philosophical underpinnings for Silk Road.”
The location of Dread Pirate Roberts was found through the server records of the VPN he was using. As it turned out, Ulbricht was accessing his VPN in an internet cafe in San Francisco near the apartment he was living in with a friend of his.
Law enforcement also reportedly caught Dread Pirate Roberts purchasing fake IDs needed to rent extra servers for the website. This package was intercepted by Homeland Security.
On Oct. 1, 2013, Ulbricht’s laptop was seized at the internet cafe while he was logged into Silk Road under the alias Dread Pirate Roberts.
In 2015, Ulbricht was sentenced to a double life prison sentence plus 40 years for drug trafficking, criminal enterprise, aiding and abetting, distribution of drugs over the internet, computer hacking, and money laundering. He was also accused of commissioning six different hitmen, although there was no evidence that any murders actually took place.
Two years and 24,000 items sold later, the Silk Road was shut down by law enforcement. It was reported that over $1 billion worth of digital currency was seized in connection with the case, with 600,000 bitcoins belonging to Ulbricht himself.
During the trial, outside of a Manhattan court, a protest took place in support of Ulbricht. The main message of the protest was that web hosting should not be considered a crime. Derrick J Freeman, a demonstrator, told the Guardian that if a website can be prosecuted for what its users do, “drag Craiglist off to prison.”
Fast forward to 2025, after eleven years of incarceration, U.S. President Donald Trump would keep his promise of pardoning Silk Road’s creator.
“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,” Trump explained in a post on Truth Social.
This case remains controversial due to its technological implications. Ulbricht’s sentencing—two life terms plus 40 years—being harsher in nature than that of infamous kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán—life in prison plus 30 years—raises important questions that need to be addressed. Was the decision just? Should web hosts get punished for how users utilize the platform?
Ulbricht and his creation of the Silk Road may reflect a “cyber-driven” evolution in how organized crime is shaping our world. With online drug markets becoming increasingly popular, some may be wondering if it is time for the law to address cyber crimes more appropriately.
