Ulbricht is seen in this undated handout photograph courtesy of Lyn Ulbricht.
AFP/New York
The American convicted of masterminding criminal website Silk Road, which sold $200mn worth of drugs to customers all over the world using digital currency Bitcoin, will be jailed today.
Ross Ulbricht, a Texan-born Californian, was found guilty in February by a New York jury on seven counts of narcotics trafficking, criminal enterprise, computer hacking and money laundering.
The highly-educated 31-year-old faces a minimum sentence of 20 years. But the government is pushing for a much tougher penalty.
His trial was considered a landmark case in the murky world of online crime and government surveillance, and his sentencing by Federal Judge Katherine Forrest will be closely watched.
Ulbricht last week wrote to Forrest, equating his maximum possible sentence of life imprisonment with the death penalty, and begging to live out his old age in freedom.
Prosecutors say Ulbricht set up a narcotics-trafficking enterprise that resulted in at least six drug-related deaths and amassed him millions in commissions.
The government brought overwhelming evidence against Ulbricht, who was arrested red-handed, with a laptop in a San Francisco library by FBI agents in October 2013.
The government said 95% of the products on Silk Road were drugs, with the rest fake IDs, hacking tools and hacking services.
