Posted on 11/29/2020 10:35:38 AM PST by ransomnote
SAN FRANCISCO - The United States filed a civil complaint today to forfeit thousands of Bitcoins, valued at over $1 billion dollars, seized by law enforcement on November 3, 2020, announced United States Attorney David L. Anderson of the Northern District of California and Special Agent in Charge of the Washington DC Field Office, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Kelly R. Jackson. The seizure represents the largest seizure of cryptocurrency in the history of the Department of Justice.
“Silk Road was the most notorious online criminal marketplace of its day,” said U.S. Attorney Anderson. “The successful prosecution of Silk Road’s founder in 2015 left open a billion-dollar question. Where did the money go? Today’s forfeiture complaint answers this open question at least in part. $1 billion of these criminal proceeds are now in the United States’ possession.”
“Criminal proceeds should not remain in the hands of the thieves. Through CI’s expertise in following the money, we were able to track down the illicit funds,” said IRS-CI Special Agent in Charge Kelly R. Jackson. “The Washington DC Cyber Crimes Unit is uniquely specialized in tracing virtual currency transactions and we will continue to hone our skills to combat illegal activity.”
According to the allegations of the civil forfeiture complaint, from 2011 until October 2013 when it was seized by law enforcement, Silk Road was the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet. It served a sprawling black market bazaar where unlawful goods and services were bought and sold regularly by the site’s users. The complaint alleges that while in operation, Silk Road was used by thousands of drug dealers and other unlawful vendors to distribute hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs as well as other unlawful goods and services to well over 100,000 buyers, and to launder hundreds of millions of dollars derived from these unlawful transactions. At the time it was taken down in 2013, Silk Road had nearly 13,000 listings for controlled substances and many more listings offering illegal services, such as computer hacking and murder for hire, which generated sales revenue totaling over 9.5 million Bitcoins and commissions from these sales totaling over 600,000 Bitcoins. The complaint further alleges that Silk Road used a so-called “tumbler” to process Bitcoin transactions in a manner designed to frustrate the tracking of individual transactions through the cryptocurrency Blockchain.
The Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht, following his arrest in San Francisco, was convicted in 2015 by a New York federal jury of seven criminal counts, including conspiracy to distribute narcotics and money laundering.
The complaint further alleges that in 2020 agents of the IRS CI used a third party bitcoin attribution company to analyze bitcoin transactions executed by Silk Road and were able to identify 54 previously undetected bitcoin transactions executed by Silk Road, all of which appear to represent bitcoin, which was the proceeds of unlawful activity, that was stolen from Silk Road in or about 2012 and 2013.
The complaint alleges that these funds were traced to a bitcoin address. Further investigation of that bitcoin address by the United States Attorney’s Office and IRS CI agents revealed that the funds were connected to Individual X. It was further determined that Individual X had hacked the funds from Silk Road. Pursuant to that investigation of the hack, law enforcement seized several thousand Bitcoins on November 3, 2020. On November 4, 2020, the seized Bitcoin had a value of over $1 billion.
The civil complaint merely alleges that certain property is subject to forfeiture. The United States must prove, by a standard of preponderance of the evidence, that the items are subject to forfeiture. If the United States prevails, the court will order all interests of any potential claimant forfeited.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Claudia Quiroz, William Frentzen, David Countryman, and Chris Kaltsas of the Northern District of California are prosecuting the forfeiture with the assistance of Carolyn Jusay. The forfeiture action is the result of an investigation by IRS – Criminal Investigation Cyber Crimes Unit with assistance from Chainalysis and Excygent.
They can do that but they can’t keep ballots safe from interference...
The ransomware that hit the organization I was with briefly, demanded payment in bitcoin.
I tried to alert them to all the security dangers and risks. And their bad practices. And was berated for it by the manager.
He wouldn’t know proper I/T practices if they dumped it on him from a bucket loader.
Alas, this is true of many organizations, large and small. What’s your opinion of Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies?
How does one seize bitcoins?
Do they waterboard someone for a password?
Compliant judges working hand-in-hand with the FBI in both cases.
Seizing and unlocking cell phones where the wallets reside most likely.
I really have no experience with them but it seems to me that the Antichrist and the false prophet will control everything financial. So I expect it to not be untouchable in the final analysis.
I’m not surprised some use it for crime right now. Like everything they can.
No. That’s not how it works.
These were in the wallets managed by “Silk Road.”
It’s like seizing a safe with stacks of $100 bills from drug dealers.
It’s like seizing a safe with stacks of $100 bills from drug dealers.
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maybe more like seizing a warehouse full of $100 bills??
1BB = lotta coin
How would the Fed's cash out $1Billion of 1's & 0's (Digital Money)?
The outcome will be large fluctuations in the btc price.
Seriously?
They would go through brokers and sell it in blocks. Dumping all of that on a thin market would drop it like a stone. So they break it up into blocks of $50 million and sell it to private investors.
Honestly, they should hang onto it. It’s only going up in value. They could cash out a limited amount every year or so. In 5 years that billion will be worth about 3-5 billion.
Yes. Yes it is.
They could find a lot of their dictatorial plans with $1billion in bitcoin.
neither trust nor value
So even bigger criminals seize it, poetic justice.
Will that lower our taxes or be used for good purpose? Don't hold your breath.
My reading of this article indicates that it was not seized from the Silk Road guy. It was seized from some hacker who stole it from the Silk Road guy. No honor among modern thieves. I’d imagine that the hacker who stole it from Silk Road could be a valuable asset.
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