The United States law enforcement authorities have seized over 50,676 Bitcoins that were stolen from the notorious dark web marketplace, Silk Road, in 2012. The current market value of the seized Bitcoins is more than $1 billion, while the cryptos were worth over $3.36 billion during the search and seizure conducted in November 2021.
It was the second largest financial seizure by the US authorities following the forfeiture of $3.6 billion in stolen cryptocurrencies linked to the 2016 Bitfinex hack.
Announced on Monday, the massive amount of Silk Road-linked Bitcoins was obtained from the residence of Georgia-based James Zhong, who tricked the processing system of the darknet marketplace into getting the cryptocurrencies. Zhong has already pled guilty to the wire fraud charges and is now facing up to 20 years in prison.
Silk Road was an infamous darknet market marketplace that facilitated the sale of drugs, fake documents, and all kinds of other illegal substances and services. The US government seized the platform in 2013, and its creator Ross Ulbricht was convicted in 2015. Ulbricht received life in prison for facilitating illegal drug sales and his appeal was rejected in 2017.
“For almost ten years, the whereabouts of this massive chunk of missing Bitcoin
