Who is Ross Ulbricht, founder of drug marketplace Silk Road, now pardoned by Trump?
The creator of a dark web market that sold illegal drugs, stolen passports and hacking equipment using Bitcoin has been pardoned by President Donald Trump.
Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison, without the possibility of parole, in 2015 in connection with his ownership and operation of the hidden website. The then-26-year-old was also ordered to forfeit $183.9m (£120.2m).
“Make no mistake: Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people’s addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people,” said Preet Bharara, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York said at the time of his incarceration.
What was Silk Road?
According to documents presented at his trial, Ulbricht created Silk Road in January 2011 and owned and operated the underground website until it was shut down by the police in October 2013.
Silk Road took its name from a network of historic trading routes that were active in the second century.
It emerged as the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the internet, where a variety of illegal drugs were bought and sold.
Silk Road was used by thousands of drug dealers, distributing hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs to more than 100,000 buyers, totaling more than $200m (£131m). Ulbricht was accused of making more than $13m (£10.53m) in commission.
Ulbricht was accused of using a Bitcoin-based payment system to facilitate illegal activity on the site, and he used a special network to conceal the identities and locations of its users.
Read more: How users accessed Silk Road
The FBI said the site had just under a million registered users, but it’s not clear how many of those were active, or which country they were in.
Silk Road
Murder for hire and six deaths
Prosecutors also claimed Ulbricht was willing to use violence to protect his criminal enterprise.
They said he solicited six murders-for-hire – including one against a former employee – although there was no evidence any of these actually took place and Ulbricht was never tried for them.
The former employee has also voiced support for the campaign to free Ulbricht, and said he did not believe he was dangerous.
Six deaths were connected to drugs sold on the site. Among them, was a 27-year-old Microsoft employee who was found unresponsive in front of his computer, which was logged into Silk Road. He had died of a heroin and prescription drug overdose.
Two sixteen-year-old boys, one from Australia and one from California, both died from taking 25i-NBOMe, a powerful synthetic drug designed to mimic LSD (and commonly referred to as “N-Bomb”) that they had bought on the site.
Read more: Seized Silk Road Bitcoins auctioned by US
Ulbricht during his trial. Pic: AP
Caught by a Gmail account
It was a painstaking process to identify the man behind Silk Road, known online as Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR), a reference to a character in the 1987 film The Princess Bride.
It began with a post made on a web forum where users discussed magic mushrooms. A user nicknamed Altoid started publicising the site, linking off to its dark web location.
Altoid then appeared on another site, discussing virtual currency. In a post asking for an IT expert with a knowledge of Bitcoin, he asked people to contact him via rossulbricht@gmail.com.
This email address was the breakthrough that ultimately linked Ulbricht to Silk Road.
An undercover agent linked this address to a series of social networks, including a YouTube account, which had favourited several clips from the Ludwig von Mises Institute, an Austrian school of economics. DPR would later make several references to the institute on Silk Road discussion forums.
A further lead came in the form of a routine border check of a package from Canada that contained several forged documents, all with Ulbricht’s photo, being delivered to his flat share in San Francisco.
Another slip-up came when Ulbright posted on a question-and-answer site for programmers, asking questions about an intricate code that later become part of the source code for Silk Road. He accidentally identified himself as Ross Ulbricht, before quickly correcting it.
Ross Ulbricht taken from his Google + page
Life in prison
Ulbricht spoke after sentencing expressing remorse for what he had done.
“I’ve essentially ruined my life and broken the hearts of every member of my family and my closest friends,” he said. He walked out of the courtroom carrying with him photographs of those who died as a result of drugs purchased on his website.
Now aged 39, he most recently wrote to President Joe Biden in October 2022, pleading for release.
“Over countless hours, I have searched my soul and examined the misguided decisions I made when I was younger,” he wrote.
“I have dug deep and made a sincere effort to not just change what I do, but who I am. I am no longer the type of man who could break the law and let down so many.”
He said he had worked with prisoners to overcome addictions and come to understand “the damage I caused by helping promote drugs”.
He said he longed to have a future once more and hoped to start a family with his fiance, who “stood by me for all these years”.
A group of supporters had been campaigning for his release. Pic: AP
Freedom
On the second day of his presidency, Mr Trump said he had called Ulbricht’s mother to let her know “it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son”.
He called those who had convicted Ulbricht “scum”, citing his own convictions: “[They] were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me.”
Pic: Truth Social
The ‘Free Ross’ X account posted an image of Ulbricht leaving prison a short while later.
Virginia Giuffre, who accused Prince Andrew of sexual assault, has died aged 41.
In a statement to Sky’s US partner network NBC News on Friday, her family said she took her own life in the Perth suburb of Neergabby, Australia, where she had been living for several years.
“It is with utterly broken hearts that we announce that Virginia passed away last night at her farm in Western Australia,” her family said.
“She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking.
“Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors.
“In the end, the toll of abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle its weight.”
Pic: AP
Police said emergency services received reports of an unresponsive woman at a property in Neergabby on Friday night.
“Police and St John Western Australia attended and provided emergency first aid. Sadly, the 41-year-old woman was declared deceased at the scene,” a police spokeswoman said.
“The death is being investigated by Major Crime detectives; early indication is the death is not suspicious.”
Sexual assault claims
Prince Andrew has denied all claims of wrongdoing. File pic: Reuters
Ms Giuffre sued the Duke of York for sexual abuse in August 2021, saying Andrew had sex with her when she was 17 and had been trafficked by his friend, the billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The duke has repeatedly denied the claims, and he has not been charged with any criminal offences.
In March 2022, it was announced Ms Giuffre and Andrew had reached an out-of-court settlement – believed to include a “substantial donation to Ms Giuffre’s charity in support of victims’ rights”.
‘An incredible champion’
Sigrid McCawley, Ms Giuffre’s attorney, said in a statement that she “was much more than a client to me; she was a dear friend and an incredible champion for other victims”.
“Her courage pushed me to fight harder, and her strength was awe-inspiring,” she said. “The world has lost an amazing human being today.”
“Rest in peace, my sweet angel,” she added.
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Dini von Mueffling, Ms Giuffre’s representative, also said that “Virginia was one of the most extraordinary human beings I have ever had the honour to know”.
“Deeply loving, wise, and funny, she was a beacon to other survivors and victims,” she added. “She adored her children and many animals.
“She was always more concerned with me than with herself. I will miss her beyond words.
“It was the privilege of a lifetime to represent her.”
Ms Giuffre said at the end of March she had four days to live after a car accident, posting on social media that “I’ve gone into kidney renal failure”. She was discharged from hospital eight days later.
Raised mainly in Florida, she said she was abused by a family friend early in life, which led to her living on the streets at times as a teenager.
She said that in 2000, she met Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite who was convicted in 2021 on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. Pic: US Department of Justice
Ms Giuffre said Maxwell then introduced her to Epstein and hired her as his masseuse, and said she was sex trafficked and sexually abused by him and associates around the world.
‘A survivor’
After meeting her husband in 2002, while taking massage training in Thailand at what she said was Epstein’s behest, she moved to Australia and had a family.
She founded the sex trafficking victims’ advocacy charity SOAR in 2015, and is quoted on its website as saying: “I do this for victims everywhere.
“I am no longer the young and vulnerable girl who could be bullied. I am now a survivor, and nobody can ever take that away from me.”
:: Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.
Donald Trump has met Volodymyr Zelenskyy ahead of the Pope’s funeral, Vatican sources have told Sky News.
The US and Ukrainian presidents had a “very productive discussion”, according to a White House Official, and have also agreed to hold further talks after the service.
They are among world leaders, including Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron, who are attending the funeral of Pope Francis.
Follow live updates: Zelenskyy among world leaders joining thousands of mourners
There was applause from some of those gathered in St Peter’s Square when the Ukrainian leader walked out.
The former British ambassador to Russia Sir Tony Brenton said the event presents diplomatic opportunities, including the “biggest possible meeting” between Mr Trump and Mr Zelenskyy.
Trump and Zelenskyy meet for first time since Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
He told Sky News it could mark “an important step” in starting the peace process between Russia and Ukraine, and is their first face-to-face meeting after a very public row between the presidents at the White House in February.
The bilateral meeting comes after Mr Trump’s peace negotiator Steve Witkoff held talks with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.
They discussed “the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which began in February 2022.
Mr Trump has claimed a deal to end the war is “very close” and has urged Mr Zelenskyy to “get it done” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
He has previously warned both sides his administration would walk away from its efforts to achieve a peace if the two sides do not agree a deal soon.
Meanwhile, the Polish Armed Forces said a Russian military helicopter violated its airspace over the Baltic Sea on Friday evening, in a post on X.
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US
Donald Trump says Russia and Ukraine are ‘very close to a deal’ – and says ‘two sides should now meet’
Donald Trump has said Russia and Ukraine are “very close to a deal” with “most of the major points agreed” – as he called for the two sides to meet.
Shortly after arriving in Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral, the US president said high-level officials should now meet to “finish [the deal] off”.
“A good day in talks and meetings with Russia and Ukraine,” Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“They are very close to a deal, and the two sides should now meet, at very high levels, to ‘finish it off’.
“Most of the major points are agreed to. Stop the bloodshed, NOW. We will be wherever is necessary to help facilitate the END to this cruel and senseless war!”
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Ukraine-Russia peace talks explained
Throughout the week, the US president has criticised both Ukraine and Russia for failing to agree to a peace deal.
On Wednesday, he accused Mr Zelenskyy of harming talks on Truth Social, saying “the man with ‘no cards to play’ should now, finally, GET IT DONE”.
A day later, after nine people were killed in Kyiv after a Russian missile and drone strike, Mr Trump said: “Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying. Let’s get the Peace Deal DONE!”
The president and other officials have also threatened to withdraw from negotiations if no progress is made toward a deal.
It comes after Mr Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss a US-brokered peace plan for Ukraine.
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Putin-Witkoff meeting
The talks allowed Russia and the United States to “further bring their positions closer together” on “a number of international issues”, a Kremlin aide said.
Speaking earlier on the flight to Italy, Mr Trump said he hadn’t been fully briefed on Mr Witkoff and Mr Putin’s meeting – but added it was a “pretty good meeting”.
Read more:
US and Russia talks moving in ‘right direction’, top diplomat says
A ‘barbaric’ 24 hours in a ‘horrendous’ war
Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which began in February 2022.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it would not accept a deal conceding land or handing over sovereignty to Russia.
However, Mr Trump said in an interview with TIME magazine that “Crimea will stay with Russia,” describing the region as a place where Moscow has “had their submarines” and “the people speak largely Russian”.
“Zelenskyy understands that, and everybody understands that it’s been with them for a long time,” he added. “It’s been with them long before Trump came along.”
When asked on Friday about Mr Trump’s comments, Mr Zelenskyy did not want to comment but repeated that recognising occupied Ukrainian territory as Russian is a red line.
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