New York -
Ross Ulbricht, founder of the online drug marketplace Silk Road, faces life in prison after a New York court on Wednesday found him guilty on seven counts of drug trafficking, criminal enterprise and conspiracy to hack computers and launder money.
“Ulbricht's arrest and conviction - and our seizure of millions of dollars of Silk Road bitcoins - should send a clear message to anyone else attempting to operate an online criminal enterprise,” federal prosecutor Preet Bharara said in a statement after the verdict.
Ulbricht, 30, founded the “dark web” website, a marketplace for illegal drugs and other illicit trade accessible only through anonymising portals, in 2011 under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts,” prosecutors said.
Ulbricht did not testify at the trial, but his lawyers denied the charges.
Among the “mountain” of evidence prosecutors presented at the three-week trial were incriminating documents from his personal laptop, millions of dollars-worth of the digital currency Bitcoin linked to Silk Road transactions, and testimony from a former friend who helped Ulbricht in the site's early days.
The judge barred the defence from calling two expert witnesses in cybersecurity and digital currency whom Ulbricht's supporters believed could have helped his case.
“I think it would have been a very different outcome if the jury had been permitted to hear all the evidence,” Ulbricht's mother Lyn Ulbricht said after the trial, according to Bloomberg News.
Ulbricht faces up to life in prison at a sentencing hearing May 15.
Authorities shut down the Silk Road website in October 2013 and arrested Ulbricht on charges he masterminded the sale of 1.2 billion dollars worth of heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and other illegal drugs.
Just a month after Ulbricht's arrest at a San Francisco library, a new internet drugs portal, Silk Road 2.0, appeared online.
The FBI shut it down in November 2014 and arrested Ulbricht's alleged successor, programmer Blake Benthall.
Sapa-dpa