American stole 50,000 bitcoins in the darknet

US citizen James Zhong pleaded guilty to stealing 50,000 bitcoins from a Silk Road wallet, a darknet marketplace. This was announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York in a press release.

The American came up with a fraudulent scheme back in 2012 — he used a chain of fake accounts and conducted transactions through them, using a hack in the Silk Road system. on September 19, 2012, Zhong sent 500 BTC to a Silk Road wallet. Then, within five seconds of depositing the cryptocurrency, he managed to withdraw 500 BTC five times in a row. As a result of this operation, the fraudster’s «net» profit amounted to 2000 BTC. Law enforcement officers found out that Jun conducted more than 140 transactions and managed to accumulate 50,000 BTC.

on November 9, 2021, law enforcement officers searched the defendant’s house. They confiscated 50,676 BTC ($ 3.36 billion at the time), as well as $ 661,900 in cash and precious metals. In March 2022, the American voluntarily sent prosecutors another 1,004 BTC to which he still had access.

James Jun pleaded guilty to fraud. The judge issued a preliminary order for the complete confiscation of the offender’s property, and the final verdict will be announced on February 22, 2023.

As a reminder, Silk Road was a darknet market where users could buy and sell products prohibited by law, mostly drugs. The site had more than 100,000 users and carried out thousands of transactions worth tens of millions of dollars every day. In 2013, Silk Road was shut down, and its founder Ulbricht Ross was jailed to serve a life sentence without parole.