Trump pardons Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht

US President Donald Trump says he has signed a full and unconditional pardon for Ross Ulbricht, who operated Silk Road, the dark web marketplace where illegal drugs were sold.

Ulbricht was convicted of narcotics and money laundering conspiracy in New York in 2015 and sentenced to life in prison.

Trump posted on his Truth social platform that he called Ulbricht’s mother to tell her that he had pardoned her son.

Silk Road, which was shut down in 2013 after police arrested Ulbricht, sold illegal drugs using the virtual currency Bitcoin, as well as hacking tools and stolen passports.

“The lunatics who worked to convict him were the same lunatics who engaged in the modern weaponization of the government against me,” Trump said in his online post. “He was given two life sentences plus 40 years. Ridiculous!”

During his trial, prosecutors said Ulbricht’s website, hosted on the secret “dark web”, anonymously sold drugs worth more than $200 million (£131m).

The Silk Road takes its name from the historical trade routes that spanned parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa.

The site gained notoriety through media reports and online conversation. But users could only access the site through Tor – a system that lets people use the Web without revealing who they are or what country they are in.

FBI court documents said there were just under one million registered users on the site, but investigators said they did not know how many were active.

Ulbricht’s sentencing District Judge Katherine Forrest – who has two college degrees – said he was “no better person than any other drug dealer”.

He said the site was his “carefully planned life’s work”.

The judge said the long sentence also served as a message to copycats that there would be “very serious consequences”.

“I wanted to empower people to make choices in their lives and have privacy and anonymity,” Ulbricht said during his sentencing hearing in May 2015.

Trump previously teased that he planned to commute Ulbricht’s sentence during a May speech at the Libertarian National Convention.

The Libertarian Party was advocating for Ulbricht’s release and said his case was an example of government overreach.