The Department of Justice (DOJ) said the agency had seized 50,676 BTC tied to the darknet marketplace Silk Road in November 2021, marking its second largest seizure at the time. The bitcoins are worth $1.04 billion.
• “This case shows that we won’t stop following the money, no matter how expertly hidden, even to a circuit board in the bottom of a popcorn tin,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a statement.
• The owner of those BTC, James Zhong, pled guilty to one count of wire fraud on Friday related to a lucrative Silk Road exploit in 2012 and faces 20 years in prison. The darknet marketplace was founded in 2011 and is lauded as the proving ground for using BTC for payments,