Dark Wallet developer Amir Taaki recently came out in support of convicted Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht.
In a recent YouTube video, the British-Iranian techie said that he believes in the Ulbricht’s version of events, in which it is mentioned that he was associated with the Silk Road only during the early days of its development.
Taaki called Ulbricht a good guy, based on his first of many conversations with his pseudo identity “Dread Pirate Roberts”. He guesstimated that there were multiple identities controlling the same profile, for they behaved differently every time he conversed through it.
“Years ago, when I messaged the Silk Road, I had a conversation with the Dread Pirate Roberts – a very personal conversation where he was [talking] about how one day he hopes to be on the outside struggling for freedom together,” Taaki explained. “You know, not having to hide his identity.”
“One year [or] two years later when I messaged the guy — I’m pretty certain it was not the same guy. The tone was completely different. He had no recollection of the events that happened before, and his attitude to me was in stark contrast to the exuberant and wordy Dread Pirate Roberts of the early days. So, free Ross Ulbricht.”
It was the same thing Ulbricht’s defense had said during the trial that one could never know who is sitting on the other side of the screen. In a 2013’s interview of Dread Pirate Roberts given to Forbes, the then-current operator admitted to be a successor of the darknet website. “I didn’t start the Silk Road, my predecessor did,” he had said.
However, the Silk Road trial judge, Judge Katherine Forrest, called Ulbricht the “captain of the ship”, while handing him over his 20-year long prison sentence.
In one of his first written letters after the sentence, Ulbricht never seemed like laying down his optimism and further hoped that he will receive justice at the end of the day.
“I have confidence that the appeals court will recognize the errors by some and outright corruption by others in the government and give me some sort of remedy,” he wrote. “It could be a new trial, where hopefully the whole story can be told or the case could be dismissed altogether.”