Bitcoin: American justice seized the equivalent of $3 billion from a dark web criminal

While we are used to seeing bitcoin associated with numbers reaching millions, there is some news beyond our understanding. The James Zhong case is one of them. In 2012, the latter stole several tens of thousands of BitcoinTo the Silk Road platform, formerly the most popular marketplace on the dark web. This Friday, November 4, James Zhong pleaded guilty before American justice.

A record-setting opportunity for the latter. 3.36 billion : this is the dollar equivalent of all cryptocurrencies confiscated from the criminal during the raid on his home on November 9, 2021. Location in early 2022.

He became a billionaire by defrauding the largest dark web market

Note that James Zhong himself quickly cooperated with the police by donating 1004,146 218 36 Bitcoins, or about 20 million euros at the current price. Additionally, the authorities hope to recover an additional 51,680,324,737 33 Bitcoins in this operation, ie. more than one billion euross at the time of this writing. How could James Zhong hoard such loot?

His plan was relatively simple. The US Department of Justice explains that the scammer was able to withdraw more money from the Silk Road wallet over a certain period of time than it actually contained. For example, 5 minutes after depositing 500 Bitcoins, James Zhong can withdraw 2000 Bitcoins. However, the reason for this defect has not been disclosed.

As a reminder, Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht has been serving a life sentence since 2015 for money laundering and drug dealing.