Who is Ross Ulbricht, the online drug kingpin Trump pardoned

Donald Trump took a victory lap over the weekend celebrating his January pardon of Ross Ulbricht, founder of the “Silk Road” dark web drug marketplace, who had been serving a double life sentence in federal prison.

The president reposted messages on Truth Social calling Ulbricht’s case “one of the most corrupt, unjust prosecutions in modern history,” and claiming Trump knew it was a “frame-up job by the same people who hated him.”

Last week, Ulbricht weighed in about the pardon, sharing a photo on X of himself and his wife, saying the reprieve showed “our prayers [were] finally answered.”

Ulbricht’s pardon is the latest chapter in a long-running legal saga, rife with allegations of corruption, attempted murder-for-hire, and online criminality.

How did Trump, who called on the campaign trail for using the death penalty against drug dealers, end up pardoning an online drug kingpin?

Here’s what you need to know:

Who is Ross Ulbricht and what was he convicted of?

Ulbricht, an Eagle Scout from Austin, Texas, using the online pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts,” a reference to 1987 film The Princess Bride, set up the Silk Road online marketplace on the non-public “dark web” in 2011, where customers could use cryptocurrencies to buy everything from illegal drugs to hacking services.

The site, which ran until authorities shut it down in 2013, were believed linked to more than $200 million in drug deals, and at least six deaths from drugs purchased on the platform, according to federal officials.

In 2015, after undercover agents made more than 60 purchases of illegal drugs on the site, Ulbricht was given two life sentences without the possibility of parole on a variety of charges, including drug distribution and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

“Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people’s addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people,” then-U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said of the conviction.

Why do people criticize the case against Ross Ulbricht?

Ulbricht, even before his pardon, was a cause célèbre in certain corners of the political right, the cryptocurrency world, and the libertarian movement, all of whom argued Ulbricht was unfairly prosecuted.

As evidence, they pointed to the fact that two of the federal agents working on the case against Ulbricht eventually pleaded guilty to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency from Silk Road.

They also noted that Ulbricht’s harsh sentence was in part influenced by allegations, which the court upheld on a preponderance of the evidence, that the Silk Road founder solicited six murders for hire, even though prosecutors didn’t introduce any evidence the killings had actually been carried out.

Why did Trump pardon Ross Ulbricht?

Ulbricht supporters including the Silk Road founder’s mother, the Libertarian Party, and crypto activists lobbied Trump for years to pardon Ulbricht, and secured commitments from presidential candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to do the same during the 2024 campaign.

Trump reportedly came close to issuing a pardon at the end of his first term, but elected not to, given the controversies surrounding Trump supporters’ January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The lobbying on Ulbricht’s behalf included a dinner with Libertarian National Committee chair Angela McArdle at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate as Trump worked on his White House comeback.

“‘People are gonna go nuts; they’re going to love it so much,’” McArdle told the Republican, she recalled to The Wall Street Journal.

Last May, Trump promised during a speech at the Libertarian convention to free Ulbricht.

What has Trump said about Ross Ulbricht?

Trump kept his word, pardoning the Silk Road founder on his second day in office, after he offered pardons to nearly all of his supporters who were prosecuted after January 6, including those who assaulted police officers in the riot.

“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 said of his decision.

Since being released, Ulbricht has kept a relatively low profile, though analysts say cryptocurrency wallets linked to the Silk Road founder have lost millions of dollars this year during an attempted sell-off of Ulbricht-themed $ROSS tokens.

Ulbricht has said he’s “not involved or associated with any meme coin bearing my name. There is no official Ross coin.”