Justice US seizes 69,369 bitcoin stolen from Silk Road – IT Pro – News

The 69,369 bitcoin, converted 813 million euros, that were moved from a wallet in recent weeks, were, as suspected, linked to Silk Road, but were stolen from that drug marketplace. That is claimed by justice in the US, which has confiscated the bitcoins.

The US authorities have said last November 3 thousands of bitcoins confiscated. The seizure follows an investigation by the United States Prosecutor’s Office and the US tax investigation agency IRS IC into 54 Bitcoin transactions carried out by Silk Road that had not previously emerged from investigations. In the investigation, the authorities used the services of blockchain analysis company Chainalysis.

The transactions could be traced back to a person that the authorities call ‘individual X’. The investigation revealed that this person was behind a hack on Silk Road in 2012 and 2013, in which he looted bitcoins and sent them to the address 1HQ3Go3ggs8pFnXuHVHRytPCq5fGG8Hbhx moved. The owner of Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, was able to find out the identity of the thief at the time and ordered him to return the bitcoins. He refused this and left the wallet untouched, except for a few transactions, of which the one from April 2015 was the last.

The researchers recently used unnamed ‘software tools’ to find out X’s identity as well. Subsequently, the 69,369 bitcoins were forfeited and confiscated. Reports already appeared on Wednesday the striking transaction of 813 million euros from the address in question, which until then contained the fourth largest amount of bitcoins. In recent months, a file from the wallet has allegedly been offered on hacker forums, with the aim of cracking it.

–