The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has officially filed a complaint to forfeit 69,370 bitcoin (EXANTE: BTC), bitcoin gold (BTG), bitcoin SV (BSV) and bitcoin cash (BCH) from an unknown individual (1HQ3Go3ggs8pFnXuHVHRytPCq5fGG8Hbh) who allegedly moved the cryptocurrency from Silk Road, an online black market and the first modern darknet market.
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According to the filling, the DOJ hopes to lock the funds with the help of the court of the Northern District of California. As of November 3, 2020, the address had a balance of 69,370.22491543 bitcoins (over $1 billion as of press time).
While it remains unknown who is behind the wallet, the watchdog claims his (or her) identity "is known to the government."
Chainalysis states Silk Road accounted approximately 20% of total bitcoin economic activity at its peak in 2013 as its activity reached $435 million.
In August 2017, a former FBI agent Shaun Bridges admitted to moving 1,600 bitcoins confiscated by federal authorities. The story of two rogue US Secret Service agents, Shaun Bridges and Carl Mark Force who were caught and sentenced to prison for stealing funds of the darknet market Silk Road dates back to 2015.
As iHodl earlier reported, the DOJ recently confiscated $24 million in cryptos from the operator of a fraudulent investment scheme. The project organizer fraudulently obtained more than $200 million. As part of Operation Egypto, Brazil issued an order to seize cryptocurrencies from Marcos Antonio Fagundes, who has been charged with several criminal violations, including the illegal creation of a company as a financial institution, the violation of securities laws and money laundering.
Fagundes has allegedly carried out a scheme in which he offered users to invest in cryptos both online and in person.
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