A Georgia resident has been sentenced to at least one 12 months in jail following a $3.4 billion Bitcoin theft, the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace Southern District of New York introduced April 14.
Zhong stole billions in BTC in 2012
The authorities mentioned that James Zhong first dedicated wire fraud in opposition to Silk Highway in 2012.
By means of that motion, Zhong stole over 51,680 BTC from the darknet market market. That quantity was value $3.4 billion in 2012 and is value $1.57 billion at current.
Zhong initially created a number of Silk Highway accounts and funded these accounts with a lesser quantity of Bitcoin. He then quickly executed over 140 transactions to be able to drive the system to launch Bitcoin to his accounts.
Zhong then transferred the stolen Bitcoin to a number of addresses to be able to cover his possession of the funds. He additionally used Bitcoin mixers to hinder monitoring makes an attempt.
He didn’t use the Silk Highway market to purchase or promote objects throughout the assault.
Zhong later benefited from the Bitcoin Money exhausting fork in 2017, which supplied him with further funds. He traded the entire Bitcoin Money for Bitcoin.
Zhong hid proceeds for greater than 10 years
Zhong hid his actions for over a decade, and regulation enforcement didn’t get well a lot of the stolen Bitcoin till a search of Zhong’s residence in November 2021.
Zhong hid his proceeds in a flooring secure and in a single-board pc hidden below blankets and in a Cheetos popcorn tin. Enforcement brokers additionally recovered numerous different objects of worth, together with money, treasured metals, and Casascius bodily bitcoins.
Zhong started to give up undiscovered Bitcoin in March 2022.
The case is only one of many current cryptocurrency-related actions from the DOJ. The company has dealt with circumstances associated to assorted scams, one other Silk Highway case, a Bitfinex theft, and people tied to the OneCoin rip-off.
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