Ross William Ulbricht (born March 27, 1984) is an American former drug trafficker and darknet market operator, best known for creating and running the Silk Road website from 2011 until his arrest in 2013.He was known under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts". Ulbricht was convicted of money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identity documents, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics in February 2015.He is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the conviction and sentence in 2017.
