Two days in the past, about $1 billion value of bitcoin that had sat dormant for the reason that seizure of the Silk Street market in 2013, one of many greatest underground drug web sites on the darkish net, immediately changed hands.
Who took it? Thriller over. It was the U.S. authorities.
In a press release Thursday, the Justice Division confirmed it had seized the 70,000 bitcoins generated in income from drug gross sales on the Silk Net market from a hacker, generally known as “Particular person X,” who moved the cryptocurrency from Silk Street right into a pockets the hacker managed.
The filing stated that the identification of Particular person X “is understood to the federal government.”
On the time of the seizure on Tuesday, the bitcoin was value greater than $1 billion.
“Silk Street was essentially the most infamous on-line felony market of its day. The profitable prosecution of Silk Street’s founder in 2015 left open a billion-dollar query. The place did the cash go? Right now’s forfeiture criticism solutions this open query no less than partly,” stated U.S. Legal professional David Anderson in remarks.
“$1 billion of those felony proceeds are actually in the USA’ possession,” he stated.
Silk Street was for a time the “most subtle and intensive felony market on the Web,” per the Justice Division assertion. In 2013, its founder and administrator Ross Ulbricht was arrested and the positioning seized. Ulbricht was convicted in 2015 and sentenced to two life terms and a further 40 years, for his function within the operation. Prosecutors stated the positioning had near 13,000 listings for medication and different unlawful providers, and generated thousands and thousands of bitcoin.
The Justice Division stated Thursday that the seized bitcoin can be topic to forfeiture proceedings.
Silk Road founder loses his appeal, will serve a life sentence for online crimes
Source link