The American authorities were able to track Ulbricht by his nickname. The criminal was arrested in San Francisco, and the illegal marketplace was closed.
Ulbricht was charged with money laundering, computer hacking and conspiracy to drug trafficking.
It was also claimed that the attacker offered about $700 thousand for the services of hired killers who were supposed to remove the people who blackmailed him. However, the latter charge is considered controversial due to the lack of direct evidence.
Ulbricht’s lawyers based their defense on the fact that the defendant is no longer the person who controls the user under the nickname Dread Pirate Roberts, but the judge considered this speculation. In 2015, Ross was sentenced to two life sentences plus 40 years under separate articles, without the possibility of early release.
Ulbricht is currently in the US prison Tucson in Arizona. In 2020, Ross’s family asked then-President Trump to pardon him, but they were refused.
And although Ulbricht is a criminal, his image is partly popularized in the media. In 2020, the film “The Antisocial Network” by American director Tiller Russell was released, which tells how Silk Road was created and how the FBI managed to expose Ulbricht.
