US President Donald Trump has announced the pardon of Ross Ulbricht, founder of the darknet store Silk Road, who was sentenced to life in prison.
“I just called his mother to let her know that in her honor and in honor of the libertarian movement that supported me, I am pleased to sign a full and unconditional pardon for her son Ross“, Trump wrote on his social media account, Truth Social.
Trump compared Ulbricht's prosecution to his own criminal cases.
“The scoundrel who wanted to convict him, he was one of the same lunatics who were involved in using the government as a weapon against me“, the US president said.
Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 after a jury found him guilty of running a drug trafficking scheme that generated over $200 million in transactions.
In October 2013, US authorities shut down the Silk Road online store, which specialized in selling illegal substances on the Tor anonymous network. According to experts, the store sells more than 10 thousand products, 70% of which are psychoactive substances banned in all or most countries.
Trump himself has repeatedly advocated life imprisonment in cases of drug trafficking.