Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht sentenced to life in prison

[Batu69]

Ross Ulbricht jailed for life despite pleading for leniency after being found guilty in landmark case over the “Amazon of drug dealing”

​Ross Ulbricht, 31, founded a website where customers could buy and sell drugs. He wrote a plea to the judge (Reuters)

The mastermind behind Silk Road, the online black market drug bazaar, has been jailed for life without the possibility of parole in a landmark case in New York.

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Ross Ulbricht, 31, a former boy scout with degrees in physics and chemistry, will die in prison for running what has been called the “Amazon of drug dealing".

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Judge Katherine Forrest told him: "You were captain of the ship. It was a carefully planned life's work. It was your opus.

​"You are no better a person than any other drug dealer. What you did in Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric."

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​Ross Ulbricht aka Dread Pirate Roberts the head of Silk Road website

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​Ulbricht, a Californian, was found guilty in February on seven charges including drug trafficking, computer hacking and money laundering.

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He received two life sentences, plus other terms of five years, 15 years and 20 years to be served concurrently.

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Silk Road facilitated the buying and selling of drugs worth $213 million (£139  million), including heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines, by thousands of dealers and users around the world over a two year period.

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Prosecutors linked drugs sold through Silk Road to the deaths of six people.

As the parents of two victims addressed the court Ulbricht broke down in tears. He carried photographs of the victims with him.

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He claimed that Silk Road had been a libertarian attempt to create a free, digital "world without restrictions" but admitted it descended into a "convenient way for drug users to satisfy their addictions".

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​Screen shot of the Silk Road website showing products that were available on the site

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​Ulbricht added: "I've essentially ruined my life and broken the hearts of every member of my family and my closest friends.

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"I'm not a self-centered sociopathic person that was trying to express some inner badness. I do love freedom. It's been devastating to use it. I wish I could go back and convince myself to take a different path."

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Silk Road was set up in 2011 and operated by Ulbricht under the name Dread Pirate Roberts, a reference to a swashbuckling character in the film The Princess Bride.

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It used the virtual currency Bitcoin, making it hard for investigators to track transactions.

The site also offered for sale counterfeit bills, fake passports and driving licences, stolen credit car information, and the services of hit men.

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Two years after it was launched the FBI tracked Ulbricht down and arrested him while he was sitting at his laptop in the science fiction section of a public library in San Francisco.

By then, Silk Road had brokered 1.5 million transactions and earned Ulbricht $18 million in commissions on the sales.

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Ulbricht initially sought to evade conviction by claiming he was not the real Dread Pirate Roberts.

He also claimed that the operation had benefited society by taking drug dealing off the streets, but the judge called that an "arrogant" and "privileged" argument.

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In a separate hearing in Chicago, Cornelis Jan Slomp, 23, a Dutchman who was the most prolific seller of drugs on Silk Road, was sentenced to 10 years in jail.

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​http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11640200/Silk-Road-founder-Ross-Ulbricht-sentenced-to-life-in-prison.html

[dMog]

apparently sometimes when you act like a total idiot you do sometimes have a price to pay...of course his time served will eventually be reduced on appeal.... he but i bet he is still surprised he got caught and even more surprised how fast he went to court and then jail....

[CODYQX4]

apparently sometimes when you act like a total idiot you do sometimes have a price to pay...of course his time served will eventually be reduced on appeal.... he but i bet he is still surprised he got caught and even more surprised how fast he went to court and then jail....

Appeal my ass, they're going to make a big example of him.

Only approved people are allowed to sell drugs. Like the Sinaloa Cartel, who had banks launder money for them with no jail time for anyone.

[dMog]

apparently sometimes when you act like a total idiot you do sometimes have a price to pay...of course his time served will eventually be reduced on appeal.... he but i bet he is still surprised he got caught and even more surprised how fast he went to court and then jail....

Appeal my ass, they're going to make a big example of him.

Only approved people are allowed to sell drugs. Like the Sinaloa Cartel, who had banks launder money for them with no jail time for anyone.

bottom line the idiot facilitated drug sales...and we are not talking pot...hard core street drugs..the ones that really fuck up peoples lives and the lives of their families... yes i think he got what he deserved and i make no apologies for that... of course it would be nice if the drug cartels could be shut down and all involved in that go to jail for life or worse happen to them....but as the big fish mostly operate in other countries it is hard to bring them to to what they deserve...unless you wish for a totalitarian regime to take over in your country that would be willing to take everyone's freedom away...and chances are that a government like that is even more susceptible to drug cartel payments to be left alone as fascists in power know their own people are more of threat to their power than any organized crime syndicate

[steven36]

I know people who sold hardcore street drugs who only pulled 3 years when they got caught ..It was there just making a big example out of him and the amount he sold ..But really putting him in jail dont stop the problem . They put people in jail every day in all 50 states for it long before the internet existed and still do it tell this day . It dont stop it for every one person they catch 5 more will start selling them . Lack of jobs and the lure of easy money wins every time. .There laws dont work. ;)

[dMog]

I know people how sold hardcore street drugs who only pulled 3 years when they got caught ..It was there just making a big example out of him and the amount he sold ..But really putting him in jail dont stop the problem . They put people in jail every day in all 50 states for it long before the internet existed and still do it tell this day . It dont stop it for every one person they catch 5 more will start selling them . Lack of jobs and the lure of easy money wins every time. .There laws dont work. ;)

totally agree that putting people them in jail does not stop the crimes....but is the alternative to let them walk free,,,no....people still need to be protected to some degree and letting them walk free is not going to do that...there are no easy solutions or answers are there...also agree that putting a kid in jail for long periods of time for mere possession of small amounts and putting him in with hard core criminals is also not a good idea...but in the above indecent...i still think he got exactly what he deserved for the magnitude of his crime..he was not some young kid that made a stupid decision one day by any stretch of anyone's imagination..a.t best he felt bad for what took place but only because he got caught and no for what he did...and reading between the lines and reading his letter to the judge he so much as admitted that fact.... maybe you do not know anyone personally that lost everything from street drugs or seen the aftermath their loved ones deal with before and after the fact...let me tell you it is far from a victimless indecent to have an addict in your family...and it ain't only the addict paying a price in their life for their actions

[steven36]

I know people how sold hardcore street drugs who only pulled 3 years when they got caught ..It was there just making a big example out of him and the amount he sold ..But really putting him in jail dont stop the problem . They put people in jail every day in all 50 states for it long before the internet existed and still do it tell this day . It dont stop it for every one person they catch 5 more will start selling them . Lack of jobs and the lure of easy money wins every time. .There laws dont work. ;)

totally agree that putting people them in jail does not stop the crimes....but is the alternative to let them walk free,,,no....people still need to be protected to some degree and letting them walk free is not going to do that...there are no easy solutions or answers are there...also agree that putting a kid in jail for long periods of time for mere possession of small amounts and putting him in with hard core criminals is also not a good idea...but in the above indecent...i still think he got exactly what he deserved for the magnitude of his crime..he was not some young kid that made a stupid decision one day by any stretch of anyone's imagination..a.t best he felt bad for what took place but only because he got caught and no for what he did...and reading between the lines and reading his letter to the judge he so much as admitted that fact.... maybe you do not know anyone personally that lost everything from street drugs or seen the aftermath their loved ones deal with before and after the fact...let me tell you it is far from a victimless indecent to have an addict in your family...and it ain't only the addict paying a price in their life for their actions

Thing is most people that sells drugs will get way less time than him , People have to pay taxes to feed and broad these thugs and as soon as they get back on the streets they sell again .I went to school with many who spends there whole life in and out of jail. But fact is the smart ones and the big fish hardly ever get caught . Many people they tried to catch for it they failed and wait for them to mess up and commit some other crime so they can pen them on something else. Many people they tried to catch and they never catch at all many go on to start legit business even . Only reason they gave him so much time because he was on the internet were it would get a lot of media when in reality most drugs come off the streets from drug cartels , doctors and drugstores even. I know many people who lost everything they had from it but also I know people who died from it and housing these people it is not working .

[CODYQX4]

I'm not endorsing his actions/claiming him innocent, but I'm not aware of anyone who went for jail for life solely for selling drugs. The big kingpins always have murders and racketeering, extortion, bribery, etc, under their belt, or they directly ordered someone to carry those out. They didn't charge him with the "hit attempts" so that shouldn't lengthen the sentence.

The fact that he is getting life while not directly moving the drugs just screams that he's being made an example of. People get parole for multiple murders.

This is a political trial. The government doesn't like the idea of decentralized internet at all, much less black markets. They went for life to intimidate anyone else who would do this. But who is to say someone couldn't run one of these websites from a nation less hard on drugs (or bribed to stay away), that would make as many screw-up as Ross did? People can start their own global dope-peddling empires now without ever having to pick up a gun or risk getting shot at by your local rival gangs.

[steven36]

This explains the Five technologies that got him caught.

//www.nsaneforums.com/topic/239939-five-technologies-that-betrayed-silk-roads-anonymity/

While he did most of his dirty work on the darknet using TOR he left his email and stuff behind on the public side of the internet . Most people that gets caught for anything on the internet makes these same type mistakes.

The government doesn't like the idea of decentralized internet at all, much less black markets.

Unmasking hidden Tor service users is too easy, say infosec bods

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/30/researchers_claim_tracking_hidden_tor_services_is_easy/

The hidden Tor services he was using dont sound very decentralized to me ...More like a false sense of privacy at very best. He took it for granted he was secure but wasn't. ;)

Really is there such thing as decentralized on the internet ? If there is once its made pubic its just a matter of time tell its cracked by governments.