The seizure involving 50,676 saw the accused, James Zhong, plead guilty to unlawfully obtaining the cryptocurrency, the DOJ said in a press statement on November 7. Zhong, accused of stealing bitcoin from the Silk Road marketplace, is said to have deployed sophisticated measures to hide the proceeds.
Cryptocurrency tracing
According to Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the crime was committed almost a decade ago, with the whereabouts of the Bitcoin remaining unknown. However, with a search warrant, the government seized the assets from Zhong’s home on November 9, 2021. Following Zhong’s guilty plea to wire fraud charges, the 32-year-old now faces a possible jail sentence of up to 20 years. Notably, Silk Road was an online black market leveraged mainly by drug dealers and other unlawful vendors distributing illicit goods and services.
