Trump pardons founder of drug website serving life sentence

US President Donald Trump has pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence for organizing illegal drug trafficking. This was reported by UNN with reference to Reuters, Donald Trump's account on Truth Social.

Details

It is noted that on Tuesday, January 21, US President Donald Trump announced a full and unconditional pardon for Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road underground online platform, who was serving a life sentence for organizing drug trafficking worth more than $200 million.

In this way, Trump fulfilled his campaign promise to release 40-year-old Ulbricht, whose imprisonment began after his arrest in 2013, a landmark case for the United States that began several years after the emergence of the popular cryptocurrency bitcoin.

The scum who worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who participated in the government's current weaponization of me

He added that the pardon was “full and unconditional” and said he had called Ulbricht's mother to share the news.

Trump announced plans to pardon Ulbricht back in May 2024 during a speech at the National Convention of the Libertarian Party, which advocates drug legalization and insisted on Ulbricht's release, calling his case an example of government overreach.

It is expected that the Trump administration will significantly change course amid the tight regulation of the cryptocurrency sector that was carried out under Joe Biden.

During the trial, prosecutors argued that Ulbricht, under the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts, took extreme measures to protect the site, including ordering the murders of several individuals who posed a threat. However, prosecutors have acknowledged that there is no evidence that any of the killings were actually carried out.

Ulbricht admitted that he created the Silk Road, but his lawyers argued that he later transferred the site to others and became a scapegoat for the real operators.

“I wanted to give people the opportunity to make choices in their lives, while ensuring confidentiality and anonymity,” Ulbricht said at the sentencing hearing in May 2015.

In February 2015, a federal jury in Manhattan found Ulbricht guilty on charges of distributing drugs over the Internet, conspiracy to hack computers, and money laundering.

Recall

On the evening of Monday, January 20, Donald Trump, arriving at the White House for the first time as the 47th president of the United States and heading to the Oval Office, was one of the first to sign an executive order pardoning hundreds of participants in the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.