Liverpool Crown Court has ordered Thomas White, (also known as Cthulhu) a former administration of the Silk Road dark web marketplace, to repay a total of $674,000 out of his earnings at more than $1.3 million.
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According to Computer Weekly, White allegedly amassed his fortune by drug trafficking, money laundering, and making over 450 indecent images of children. In April 2019, White was jailed over the above-mentioned crimes. The UK's National Crime Agency believes that White played a major role in the relaunch of the Silk Road marketplace after the website's main version was shut down by the FBI back in 2013.
"Thomas White was a well-regarded member of the original Silk Road hierarchy. He used this to his advantage when the original site was closed down and profited significantly from his criminal activity," said Branch Commander at the National Crime Agency, Tyrone Surgeon.
Founded in February 2011, the Silk Road notorious darknet marketplace allowed users to buy and sell illegal drugs and weapons. Two years after the launch, the marketplace had 10,000 products for sale by vendors, 70% of which were drugs.
In October 2013, the FBI shut down the marketplace and arrested its owner — Ross Ulbricht under charges of being the platform's founder. The next month, Silk Road 2.0 came online, run by former administrators of Silk Road. The new version was also shut down, and the alleged operator was arrested on November 6, 2014.
In October last year, the United States Department of Justice 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's cryptocurrency wallets.
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