On  February 4, 2015, a young man named Ross Ulbricht was convicted of seven charges laid in a U.S. Federal Court in Manhattan. On May 29, 2015, he was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes.

He was accused of being the owner and operator of the Silk Road website, the most popular online drug marketplace.

The indictment charged Ulbricht in seven counts, including narcotics trafficking, narcotics trafficking by means of the Internet, conspiring to commit narcotics trafficking, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to commit or aid and abet computer hacking,  conspiring to traffic in fraudulent identification documents, and conspiring to commit money laundering.