The man who created the underground drug-selling website Silk Road has been jailed for life.
Ross Ulbricht, 31, was sentenced in New York yesterday for orchestrating a scheme that enabled more than $200 million (£130m) of anonymous online drug sales using the digital currency bitcoin.
A federal jury in February found him guilty of charges including distributing drugs through the Internet and conspiring to commit computer hacking and money laundering.
During sentencing US District Judge Katherine Forrest cited six deaths from drugs bought on Ross Ulbricht’s site and five people he tried to have killed.
‘It was a carefully planned life’s work. It was your opus,’ she said.
‘You are no better a person than any other drug dealer.’
The sentence also included an order to forfeit the $183.9m (£120m) fortune Ulbricht had amassed.
Ulbricht’s 2013 arrest shut down what prosecutors described as an unprecedented one-stop online shopping mall where the supply of drugs was virtually limitless.
Outside of court Ulbricht’s lawyer Joshua Dratel promised an appeal, calling the sentence unreasonable, unjust and unfair.
