Updated on 2022-11-13: U.S. seizes $3.36 billion in cryptocurrency from second Silk Road hacker
Remember a few years ago how “Individual X” stole 70,000 bitcoins, worth about $1 billion, from the notorious Silk Road dark web marketplace and held onto it for seven years, only to apparently give it back to feds and no charges were publicly filed? Turns out someone did it again, this time stealing more than $3.3 billion worth of bitcoin from Silk Road, but this time was caught. James Zhong pled guilty to stealing the 50,000 bitcoins from Silk Road before it was busted by the feds. Zhong exploited a bug in Silk Road’s payments system that allowed him to siphon bitcoin to his wallets. The feds said they found the bitcoin on storage devices left in popcorn tins around Zhong’s house. Imagine just having a literal billion dollars casually stashed in your bathroom closet for years… Read more:
- U.S. Attorney Announces Historic $3.36 Billion Cryptocurrency Seizure And Conviction In Connection With Silk Road Dark Web Fraud
- United States Files A Civil Action To Forfeit Cryptocurrency Valued At Over One Billion U.S. Dollars
- IRS Seizes Another Silk Road Hacker’s $3.36 Billion Bitcoin Stash
- Hacker took pains to hide $3.36B of stolen bitcoin. Feds found it anyway
- Stolen $3bn Bitcoin mystery ends with popcorn tin discovery
Remember when in 2020 the IRS seized $1 billion in bitcoins from a hacker who'd stolen them from Silk Road and held them for years? IRS did the same thing with *another* Silk Road hacker the next year, this time seizing 50,000 bitcoins worth $3.36 billion. https://t.co/N43Y29UsZD
— Andy Greenberg ([email protected]) (@a_greenberg) November 7, 2022
Updated on 2022-11-09: Silk Road scammer
In a surprising case that nobody saw coming, the US Department of Justice said it seized funds and charged James Zhong, an Atlanta-based real estate mogul, who in 2012 hacked and stole more than 50,000 Bitcoin from Silk Road, a dark web marketplace for illicit products. The DOJ said it seized 50,676 of the 51,680 Bitcoin that were stolen from Silk Road. The funds are now worth $3.3 billion. Zhong has already pleaded guilty. Read more: U.S. Attorney Announces Historic $3.36 Billion Cryptocurrency Seizure And Conviction In Connection With Silk Road Dark Web Fraud
Updated on 2022-11-08
The DOJ recently stated that it seized 50,676 Bitcoins in November 2021, which were stolen in the hack of the now-defunct Silk Road dark web marketplace in 2012. Read more: U.S. Seizes Over 50K Bitcoin Worth $3.3 Billion Linked to Silk Road Dark Web
Overview: US authorities seize 50,000 bitcoin related to Silk Road
US authorities have seized more than 50,000 bitcoins related to the Silk Road dark web marketplace. The bitcoin were seized from devices hidden in the house of James Zhong last November, who had managed to trick the bitcoins out of Silk Road. Zhong ‘set up a string of approximately nine Silk Road accounts and then triggered over 140 transactions in rapid succession in order to trick the site’s withdrawal-processing system into releasing the bitcoin from its payment system into his accounts’. He pleaded guilty in 2012 when he obtained the bitcoin from the Silk Road. The bitcoins, when seized in November were worth around $3.36 billion, and are now valued at around $1 billion. Read More: US authorities seize 50,000 bitcoin related to Silk Road
