Stolen Bitcoins :
In 2012, more than 50,000 Bitcoins were stolen from the illegal Silk Road marketplace. However, after close to 10 years of tracking, the U.S authorities finally recovered this massive stash.
These Stolen Bitcoins were found in various hidden spots in a hacker’s home (i.e. these Stolen Bitcoins were stored in multiple devices like hard drives hidden in an underfloor safe while searching the area, the officers were surprised to find a tiny device that was concealed inside a popcorn tin in a bathroom closet.)
The hacker named, James Zhong was found guilty of hacking this whale stash from The Silk Road marketplace. The US Department of Justice stated that this raid is the second largest in history.
The takedown at the hacker’s home in Georgia was conducted a year ago and is only revealed now about these Stolen Bitcoins.
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The hacker confessed that he was able to hack and steal this massive Bitcoin stash from the Silk Road marketplace by utilizing a minor flaw in the payment system of the website.
In September 2012, Mr. Zhong created numerous accounts on the darknet marketplace and deposited a tiny fraction of Bitcoin into his digital wallets.
While surfing the darknet for an opportunity, he discovered a way to withdraw more significant amounts of Bitcoin without being detected or raising any suspicion and managed to extract more than 50,000 Bitcoins into his wallets, the officials found during the investigation of the Stolen Bitcoins.
Silk Road was the first marketplace of the dark web, it operated from 2011 to 2013. This dark place was used by drug dealers and other black market sellers as an expressway to sell their illicit goods, services, and massive amounts of illegal drugs across many countries.
Only with unique software can this dark web smuggling network be accessed. However, in 2015, the creator of Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison.
The hacker of these stolen bitcoins has forfeited his Bitcoins and other assets to the officials, awaiting his sentence which could be up to 20 years of prison life.
The officials of the DOJ stated that they used cryptocurrency tracing techniques to locate the stolen Bitcoins.
“For almost 10 years, the whereabouts of this massive chunk of missing Bitcoin had ballooned into an over $3.3 billion mystery,” Lawyer Damian Williams said in a report.
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