Ulbricht, 40, was about 10 years into his life sentence for helming an online black market where drug dealers, money ...

But the Silk Road, one of the first and most notorious dark web markets, soon spiralled into a criminal empire worth millions ...

In a shock decision sparking international outrage, US President Donald Trump has granted a full pardon to Ross Ulbricht, the mastermind behind the notorious Silk Road website – an online black ...

In 2015, Ulbricht, who went by the dark-Web sobriquet Dread Pirate Roberts—a reference to a shifting character in “The Princess Bride”—received two life sentences without the possibility ...

When users signed up for the website, which went live in 2011, they were greeted by a message from the founder, “Dread Pirate Roberts”, the hero of the film, explaining how the site worked.

As the chat logs read according to the indictment, Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR), the pseudonym attributed to Ulbricht, wrote to another Silk Road user, whom he believed to be a drug kingpin capable of ...

Ulbricht, who dubbed himself “Dread Pirate Roberts”, had also been accused of commissioning five murders, was sentenced to two life sentences for narcotics distribution and criminal enterprise.

In January 2025, a claim (archived) circulated that U.S. President Donald Trump had pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who was imprisoned for operating the dark web marketplace Silk Road. "I just called the ...