Trump pardons Silk Road founder Ulbricht for online drug scheme

22/1/2025 12:24

U.S. 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 over $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.



Trump said the pardon was "full and unconditional." He said he called Ulbricht's mother to break the news to her on Tuesday. Ulbricht has been imprisoned at a federal prison in Arizona and it was unclear when he would be released.



Trump's administration is expected to significantly reverse course on what had been a crackdown by regulators on the cryptocurrency sector during Democratic former President Joe Biden's tenure.