01/22/2025

Trump Pardons Cybercriminal for Online Drug Scheme

He pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht

President Donald Trump on Tuesday pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison for running an underground online marketplace where drug dealers and others conducted more than $200 million in illicit trade using bitcoin.

The Republican president made good on a campaign pledge to free Ulbricht, 40, who was arrested in 2013 and sentenced in 2015 in what became a landmark U.S. prosecution launched only a few years after the emergence of the popular cryptocurrency.

"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 in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Reuters.