Ulbricht, Ross

William repeatedly stated his libertarian views and criticized state economic regulations ^[2] .

Silk Road was an anonymous trading platform for the distribution of psychoactive substances and other illegal goods. The site worked as a hidden Tor service and used the electronic currency Bitcoin as a means of payment. In an interview with Forbes magazine, Ross claimed that he was not the creator of the site, but bought Silk Road from the original author, who, in a lawsuit, indicated him as Mark Karpeles, founder of the Bitcoin exchange Mt.Gox ^[3] . However, according to the FBI report, it was Ross who created and supported the work of the store despite the fact that Karpeles was suspected by investigators of the Ministry of Internal Security for a long time ^[4] .

On October 1 , 2013, Ross William Ulbricht (Dread Pirate Roberts ^[5] ) was arrested in the San Francisco Library. Ulbricht used his laptop at the time of his arrest and was authorized on Silk Road as the chief administrator ^[6] . He is accused of drug trafficking , hacker attacks and conspiracy to launder money ^[1] . Agents began to suspect Ulbricht after they found posts on various forums promoting the Silk Road website and published under the pseudonym altoid. The same pseudonym altoid was previously used in an ad for programmers who were offered work on a “ bitcoin business project”, and this ad used an email address with the name Ulbricht ^[7] . Then, thanks to a parcel discovered by the Canadian government with nine forged documents sent to San Francisco, which Ulbricht planned to use to rent servers for Silk Road, the agents were able to establish his place of residence ^[8] .

According to the FBI, Ulbricht ordered and paid for up to six murders of website users whom he suspected of theft and blackmail (no murders were committed, at least one of the performers was a shell, he was played by a federal agent) ^[9] . The prosecution also argued that despite ideological motives, Ulbricht was very interested in money and was preparing a possible escape from the United States to a tax haven. The investigation testified that Ulbricht knew that among the site’s clients were highly dependent, which he allowed himself to joke about in his personal correspondence with the site’s employees ^[10] .

On May 20, 2015, Ross William Ulbricht was convicted of a particularly large-scale drug trade, as well as conspiracy to launder funds and hacker activities. The final sentence contained 2 life sentences, as well as 20, 15 and 5 years of imprisonment in separate episodes ^[11] .