ROSS ULBRICHT, a.k.a.

“DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS,” SENTENCED IN MANHATTAN

FEDERAL COURT TO LIFE IN PRISON. (CONVICTION)
Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York
2015, May 29
Sobere

SUBJECT MATTER:
Subject Matter – Requisites of a Valid Subject Matter: Must be licit

NOTES ON SILK ROAD (CONVICTION)

*This was a press release, rather than a case.

 Manhattan Federal Court: Accused, a.k.a. “Dread Pirate Roberts,” was sentenced to life in prison
in connection with his operation and ownership of Silk Road, a hidden website designed to
enable its users to buy and sell illegal drugs and other unlawful goods and services
anonymously and beyond the reach of law enforcement between January 2011 and October
2013.
 Silk Road emerged as the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet,
and used by thousands of drug dealers and other unlawful vendors to distribute hundreds of
kilograms of illegal drugs and other unlawful goods and services to more than 100,000 buyers,
and to launder hundreds of millions of dollars deriving from these unlawful transactions.
1. Accused sought to anonymize transactions on Silk Road in 2 ways:
1. Accused operated Silk Road on “The Onion Router” or “Tor” network, a special
network of computers on the Internet, distributed around the world, designed to
conceal the true IP addresses of the computers on the network and thereby, the
identities of the networks’ users.
2. Accused designed Silk Road to include a Bitcoin-based payment system that
served to facilitate the illegal commerce conducted on the site, including
concealing the identities and locations of the users transmitting and receiving
funds through the site.
 Accused was subsequently convicted of 7 offenses after a 4-week jury trial:
1. Distributing narcotics
2. Distributing narcotics by means of the Internet
3. Conspiring to distribute narcotics
4. Engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise
5. Conspiring to commit computer hacking
6. Conspiring to traffic in false identity documents
7. Conspiring to commit money laundering

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