Ross Ulbricht

Ross William Ulbricht (/ˈʊlbrɪkt/; born March 27, 1984) is an American who created and operated Silk Road, the first modern darknet market, from 2011 until his arrest in 2013. Silk Road was an online marketplace that facilitated the trade in narcotics and other illegal products and services. Sales were anonymous, using bitcoin. It operated as a hidden service on the Tor network. Ulbricht ran the site under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts" after the fictional character from The Princess Bride.

In October 2013, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Ulbricht and took Silk Road offline. In 2015, he was convicted of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, distributing narcotics by means of the internet, conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identity documents, and conspiracy to commit computer hacking. He was sentenced to two life sentences plus 40 years without the possibility of parole, to be served concurrently. Members of the Libertarian Party and the "Free Ross" movement decried the sentence as excessive. Ulbricht's appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 2017 and the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 were unsuccessful. After serving 12 years, he was released from prison in January 2025, when he received a full and unconditional pardon from U.S. president Donald Trump.