Silk Road website founder jailed for life

Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the online drug marketplace ‘The Silk Road’ has been sentenced to life in prison in the US. Federal prosecutors said that the website, hosted on the “dark web” sold over $200m (£131m) worth of drugs anonymously before it was shut down in 2013. Besides drugs, the Silk Road also sold hacking equipment and stolen passports.

The untraceable deals, paid through the online currency Bitcoin, earned Ulbricht at least $18 million.

The Silk Road was only accessible on the “dark web”, a section of the internet that can only be accessed through specialised software. The most commonly used software is Tor, the “onion router” that was created by the US government to help provide activists with anonymity.

Ulbricht, 31, was found guilty in court of charges including money laundering, conspiracy to commit drug trafficking, and computer hacking. When delivering her sentence, District Judge Katherine Forrest said that he was “no better a person than any other drug dealer” and that the Silk Road was his “carefully planned life’s work”.

Ulbricht had expressed remorse and had written to the judge begging to not receive a life sentence.

"I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age,” he pled. “I’ve changed. I’m not the man I was when I created Silk Road. I’m a little wiser. A little more mature and much more humble.”

However, prosecutors wrote the judge a 16-page letter requesting the opposite, arguing that “a lengthy sentence, one substantially above the mandatory minimum is appropriate in this case.”

Forrest also rejected defence arguments that Silk Road had reduced harm among drug users by taking illegal activities off the street.

“No drug dealer from the Bronx has ever made this argument to the court,” Forrest said. “It’s a privileged argument and it’s an argument made by one of the privileged.”