U.S. Seizes Over 50K Bitcoin Worth $3.3 Billion Linked to Silk Road Dark Web

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Monday said it seized
50,676 Bitcoin in November 2021 that was stolen in the 2012 hack of
the now-defunct Silk Road dark web marketplace.

The bitcoin, which was obtained in 2012 and valued at $3.36
billion when it was discovered last year, is now worth $1.04
billion. Additionally recovered were $661,900 in cash, 25 Casascius
coins with an approximate value of 174 Bitcoin, and gold- and
silver-colored bars.

It’s also one of the largest cryptocurrency seizures to date,
followed by the confiscation of $3.6 billion worth of bitcoin
earlier this February^[1]
tied to the 2016 breach of the Bitfinex crypto exchange.

The Justice Department said it conducted the seizure on November
9, 2021, pursuant to a search warrant issued to James Zhong’s house
located in the U.S. state of Georgia. It also said the keys to the
tokens were found in an underground floor safe and on a
“single-board computer that was submerged under blankets in a
popcorn tin stored in a bathroom closet.”

The 32-year-old, on November 4, also pleaded guilty to one count
of committing wire fraud in September 2012 when he unlawfully
siphoned the cryptocurrency from Silk Road. The charge carries a
maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

“Mr. Zhong executed a sophisticated scheme designed to steal
bitcoin from the notorious Silk Road marketplace,” Tyler Hatcher,
IRS-CI^[2]
special agent in charge, said^[3]. “Once he was successful
in his heist, he attempted to hide his spoils through a series of
complex transactions which he hoped would be enhanced as he hid
behind the mystery of the ‘darknet.'”

Prior to its takedown in 2013^[4], Silk Road flourished^[5]
as a black market on the darknet for illegal drugs and other
illicit goods and services, enabling criminal actors to launder
funds passing through it. It was launched in February 2011.

In 2015, its founder Ross William Ulbricht^[6]
was sentenced to life in prison, and one of its administrators, an
Irish national named Gary Davis^[7], was jailed for
six-and-a-half years in July 2019.

Zhong, according to court documents, executed a scheme in
September 2012 to defraud Silk Road by creating nine fraudulent
accounts on the platform and triggering over 140 transactions to
plunder more than 50,000 Bitcoin before transferring the funds to a
number of wallets under his control.

While each of the nine accounts had an initial deposit that
ranged anywhere between 200 and 2,000 Bitcoin, Zhong is estimated
to have made a series of withdrawals in rapid succession with the
goal of tricking Silk Road’s processing systems into releasing more
crypto than was originally deposited.

On top of that, Zhong received 50,000 Bitcoin Cash when bitcoin
underwent a hard fork^[8]
in 2017, all of which were subsequently exchanged for an additional
3,500 Bitcoin.

“Beginning in or around March 2022, Zhong began voluntarily surrendering^[9] to the Government
additional Bitcoin that Zhong had access to and had not
dissipated,” the DoJ noted. “In total, Zhong voluntarily
surrendered 1,004.14621836 additional Bitcoin.”