US seizes $3.4 bn in bitcoin stolen from Silk Road / Photo: PIERRE TEYSSOT - AFP/File
-
Japan's only two pandas to be sent back to China
-
Zelensky, US envoys to push on with Ukraine talks in Berlin
-
Australia to toughen gun laws after deadly Bondi shootings
-
Lyon poised to bounce back after surprise Brisbane omission
-
Australia defends record on antisemitism after Bondi Beach attack
-
US police probe deaths of director Rob Reiner, wife as 'apparent homicide'
-
'Terrified' Sydney man misidentified as Bondi shooter
-
Cambodia says Thai air strikes hit home province of heritage temples
-
EU-Mercosur trade deal faces bumpy ride to finish line
-
Inside the mind of Tolkien illustrator John Howe
-
Mbeumo faces double Cameroon challenge at AFCON
-
Tongue replaces Atkinson in only England change for third Ashes Test
-
England's Brook vows to rein it in after 'shocking' Ashes shots
-
Bondi Beach gunmen had possible Islamic State links, says ABC
-
Lakers fend off Suns fightback, Hawks edge Sixers
-
Louvre trade unions to launch rolling strike
-
Far-right Kast wins Chile election landslide
-
Asian markets drop with Wall St as tech fears revive
-
North Korean leader's sister sports Chinese foldable phone
-
Iran's women bikers take the road despite legal, social obstacles
-
Civilians venture home after militia seizes DR Congo town
-
Countdown to disclosure: Epstein deadline tests US transparency
-
Desperate England looking for Ashes miracle in Adelaide
-
Far-right Kast wins Chile election in landslide
-
What we know about Australia's Bondi Beach attack
-
Witnesses tell of courage, panic in wake of Bondi Beach shootings
-
Chiefs out of playoffs after decade as Mahomes hurts knee
-
Chilean hard right victory stirs memories of dictatorship
-
Volunteers patrol Thai villages as artillery rains at Cambodia border
-
Apex Discovers Mineralized Carbonatite at its Lac Le Moyne Project, Québec
-
Lin Xiang Xiong Art Gallery Officially Opens
-
Fintravion Business Academy (FBA) Aligns Technology Development Strategy Around FintrionAI 6.0 Under Adrian T. Langshore
-
Pantheon Resources PLC - Retirement of Director
-
HyProMag USA Provides Positive Update to Valuation Of Expanded Dallas-Fort Worth Plant And Commences Strategic Review to Explore a U.S. Listing
-
Relief Therapeutics and NeuroX Complete Business Combination and Form MindMaze Therapeutics
-
Far-right candidate Kast wins Chile presidential election
-
Father and son gunmen kill 15 at Jewish festival on Australia's Bondi Beach
-
Rodrygo scrapes Real Madrid win at Alaves
-
Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong media 'troublemaker' in Beijing's crosshairs
-
Hong Kong court to deliver verdicts on media mogul Jimmy Lai
-
Bills rein in Patriots as Chiefs eliminated
-
Chiefs eliminated from NFL playoff hunt after dominant decade
-
Far right eyes comeback as Chile presidential polls close
-
Freed Belarus dissident Bialiatski vows to keep resisting regime from exile
-
Americans Novak and Coughlin win PGA-LPGA pairs event
-
Zelensky, US envoys to push on with Ukraine talks in Berlin on Monday
-
Toulon edge out Bath as Saints, Bears and Quins run riot
-
Inter Milan go top in Italy as champions Napoli stumble
-
ECOWAS threatens 'targeted sanctions' over Guinea Bissau coup
-
World leaders express horror at Bondi beach shooting
NYSE - LSE
US seizes $3.4 bn in bitcoin stolen from Silk Road
The US government announced Monday it had seized $3.4 billion in bitcoin from a real estate developer who stole the cryptocurrency from the dark web marketplace Silk Road a decade ago.
James Zhong, 32, pleaded guilty Friday to committing wire fraud in September 2012 ago when he unlawfully obtained more than 50,000 bitcoin, according to federal prosecutors in New York.
Agents recovered the digital money when they raided Zhong's house in Gainesville, Georgia, in November last year, the Southern District of New York said in a statement.
They found the bitcoin on devices hidden in an underground floor safe and on a single-board computer that was concealed under blankets in a popcorn tin stored in a bathroom closet.
"For almost ten years, the whereabouts of this massive chunk of missing bitcoin had ballooned into an over $3.3 billion mystery," said US Attorney Damian Williams.
"Thanks to state-of-the-art cryptocurrency tracing and good old-fashioned police work, law enforcement located and recovered this impressive cache of crime proceeds."
Prosecutors say Zhong defrauded Silk Road by triggering quick transactions from roughly nine anonymous accounts that tricked the site's withdrawal-processing system into depositing the bitcoin into his accounts.
He faces up to 20 years in prison.
Until the FBI shut it down in October 2013, the US government called Silk Road "the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet," used by vendors in more than 10 countries in North America and Europe.
In 2015, Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of masterminding the website, which sold $200 million in drugs to customers worldwide.
Ulbricht, who ran Silk Road under the alias "Dread Pirate Roberts" and was accused of commissioning five murders at a cost of $650,000, was sentenced to two life sentences for narcotics distribution and criminal enterprise.
The latest operation marks the Justice Department's second-largest crypto seizure after the $3.6 billion it recovered in February from a New York couple who allegedly stole 94,000 bitcoin during a 2016 hack of the virtual currency exchange Bitfinex.
A.Williams--AT