Silk Road website creator gets life term for drug plot

By Nate Raymond NEW YORK (Reuters) – The accused mastermind behind the Silk Road underground website was sentenced on Friday to life in prison for orchestrating a scheme that enabled more than $200 million of anonymous online drug sales using the digital currency bitcoin. Ross Ulbricht, 31, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan after 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

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Accused Silk Road operator maintained journal about website: U.S

By Nate Raymond NEW YORK (Reuters) – The accused operator of the online black marketplace Silk Road had a digital journal on his laptop detailing the development of the website and predicting it would become a “phenomenon,” jurors heard on Wednesday. Prosecutors showed jurors in Manhattan federal court journal entry excerpts dated in 2010 and 2011 found on a laptop seized when the FBI arrested Ross Ulbricht, who authorities say operated the website where drugs and other illicit goods could be bought with bitcoins. “Silk Road is going to become a phenomenon and at least one person will tell me about it, unknowing that I was its creator,” a 2010 journal entry on Ulbricht's laptop said.

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