US DOJ publicizes seizure of $3.36B in cryptocurrency • TechCrunch

The U.S. Division of Justice on Monday introduced that regulation enforcement seized $3.36 billion of bitcoin from a person who “unlawfully obtained” over 50,000 bitcoin from darkweb market Silk Highway over a decade in the past.

The U.S. Lawyer for the Southern District of New York stated that James Zhong of Gainesville, Georgia, pleaded responsible on November 4 to committing wire fraud in September 2012. The cost carries a most sentence of 20 years in jail.

The plea got here virtually a 12 months after regulation enforcement seized 50,676.17851897 bitcoin, then valued at over $3.36 billion, from Zhong’s dwelling, the assertion stated. Officers discovered the bitcoin in an underground ground secure and on a single-board laptop that was hidden beneath blankets in a popcorn tin positioned in a toilet closet.

Regulation enforcement additionally recovered $661,900 in money, 25 Casascius cash of bitcoin (valued at about 174 bitcoin), an extra 11.116 bitcoin, and a handful of silver- and gold-colored bars.

The whereabouts of this large quantity of bitcoin was a thriller for nearly 10 years, U.S. Lawyer Damian WIlliams stated within the launch.

It was the most important cryptocurrency seizure within the historical past of the U.S. DOJ on the time, and right this moment stays the division’s second-largest monetary seizure, it said.

Silk Highway was a web-based black market that was launched in 2011 by the then-anonymous “Dread Pirate Roberts” (later uncovered as Ross Ulbricht). It was notoriously recognized for cash laundering actions and for purchasing and promoting unlawful medicine with bitcoin. In beneath two years, the Silk Highway was shut down by the U.S. governmen,t and by 2015, Ulbricht was unanimously convicted by a jury and sentenced to life in jail.

“This case reveals that we received’t cease following the cash, regardless of how expertly hidden, even to a circuit board within the backside of a popcorn tin,” Williams stated.