Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for drug trafficking, computer hacking, and money laundering.

A letter sent to a Congressional Representative by Ross Ulbricht about his impending release from prison moved the Representative to tears.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., discusses President Donald Trump pardoning Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht on ‘The Will Cain Show.’

Ulbricht, 40, was about 10 years into his life sentence for helming an online black market where drug dealers, money launderers, and traffickers used bitcoins to mask more than $214 million in illicit trades. (Ars thoroughly documented the Silk Road saga here .)

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday on Truth Social that he had pardoned Texas native and Silk Road website founder Ross Ulbricht.

Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he has pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, an underground website for selling illegal drugs and other contraband goods like hacking equipment and stolen passports.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison for running an underground online marketplace where drug dealers and others conducted more than $200 million in illicit trade using bitcoin.

In 2015, a 31-year-old yoga enthusiast from Austin named Ross Ulbricht was found guilty of being the online drug kingpin “Dread Pirate Roberts.” Convicted on 7 counts, the judge sentenced him to life in prison. Trump pardoned Ulbricht on Tuesday and now he’s a free man after more than 10 years in custody.

Trump has claimed for years that he would free the men and women who rioted through Congress in 2021, forcing the legislature to delay the certification of the presidential election results. In an interview with NBC News’s Meet the Press in December, the MAGA leader said he would act “very quickly” to release the January 6 defendants.

Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht is free after President Donald Trump pardoned him. But who is he and what did he do?

Ross Ulbricht was found guilty in 2015 of creating and operating Silk Road, a hidden website where people bought and sold illegal drugs, as well as other unlawful goods and services.