The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has relocated over $2 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC), previously seized in connection with the Silk Road darknet marketplace, to a new wallet.
The initial step in this transfer was a minor transaction of 0.001 BTC to a Coinbase Prime address, likely serving as a preliminary test. Following this, 30,174 BTC was moved to a new address.
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This wallet transfer was identified by crypto sleuths and linked to the US DOJ, holding Bitcoin confiscated from James Zhong, the hacker behind Silk Road.
Silk Road was an online black market that operated between 2011 and 2013, where you could anonymously buy and sell illegal goods, including drugs, weapons, fake documents, and more.
Zhong was found guilty of stealing over 50,000 BTC from the marketplace and was convicted in 2022. The capture of these assets included a raid on Zhong's property, uncovering hard wallets hidden in unconventional places, such as a popcorn tin.
Ross Ulbricht, the mastermind behind Silk Road, was arrested in 2013 and is currently serving a life sentence without parole.
The government had previously liquidated a portion of the seized Bitcoin, selling about 9,861 BTC in March 2023 for over $215 million. Approximately 40,000 BTC remain untouched.
This relocation underlines US authorities' efforts to manage and potentially monetize assets obtained from criminal enterprises, also shedding light on the continuing saga of Silk Road even years after its closure.
Similarly, two US Government wallets transferred around $1 billion in BTC seized from the Bitfinex hack in February.
