The US Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a press release it has seized over 50,676 BTC (EXANTE: Bitcoin) valued at over $3.3 billion hidden in devices of James Zhong, who had pled guilty to unlawfully obtaining that bitcoin from the Silk Road dark web in September 2012.
US Attorney, Damian Williams, says that the law enforcement managed to locate the cryptocurrency thanks to "state-of-the-art cryptocurrency tracing and good old-fashioned police work."
DOJ says that Zhong back in 2012 triggered over 140 transactions in rapid succession to trick Silk Road's withdrawal-processing system into releasing approximately 50,000 into his accounts. He later transferred stolen bitcoin into a variety of separate addresses "all in a manner designed to prevent detection."
Founded in February 2011, Silk Road allowed users to buy and sell illegal drugs and weapons. Two years after the launch, the marketplace had 10,000 products for sale by vendors, 70% of which were drugs.
In October 2013, the FBI shut down the marketplace and arrested its owner, Ross Ulbricht, under charges of being the platform's founder. The next month, Silk Road 2.0 came online, run by former administrators of Silk Road. The new version was also shut down, and the alleged operator was arrested on November 6, 2014.
