The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday declared that law enforcement captured $3.36 billion of bitcoin from a man who “unlawfully got” more than 50,000 bitcoin from the dark-web market Silk Street a long time back.
The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said that James Zhong of Gainesville, Georgia, confessed on November 4 to committing wire extortion in September 2012. The charge conveys a greatest sentence of 20 years in prison.
The plea came nearly 12 months after law enforcement seized 50,676.17851897 bitcoin, then esteemed at more than $3.36 billion, from Zhong’s home, the assertion said. Authorities found the bitcoin in an underground floor protected and on a solitary board PC concealed under covers in a popcorn tin set in a restroom storeroom.
Policing recuperated $661,900 in real money, 25 Casascius coins of bitcoin (esteemed at around 174 bitcoin), an extra 11.116 bitcoin, and a modest bunch of silver-and gold-shaded bars.
The whereabouts of this enormous measure of bitcoin was a secret for very nearly 10 years, U.S. Lawyer Damian Williams said in the delivery.
It was the biggest cryptographic money seizure throughout the entire existence of the U.S. DOJ at that point, and today stays the division’s second-biggest monetary seizure, it expressed.
Silk Road was a web-based underground market that was sent off in 2011 by the then-mysterious “Dread Private Roberts” (later revealed as Ross Ulbricht). It was famously known for tax evasion exercises and for trading unlawful medications with bitcoin.
In under two years, the Silk Road was shut down by the U.S. government, and by 2015, Ulbricht was collectively indicted by a jury and condemned to life in prison.
