U.S. authorities plan to sell 41,000 bitcoins obtained by criminal means

Representatives of the Arkham Intel analytical platform reported that the US government plans to sell more than 41 400 bitcoin coins on the global market. The digital assets are linked to the Silk Road criminal marketplace.

Court documents show that the US government began liquidating about 51,352 BTC earlier this year. on March 14, 9,861 BTC were liquidated, leaving another 41,491 BTC to be sold.

«The government understands that [вилучений біткоїн] will be liquidated in four more batches during this calendar year,» the court filing says. — «The government understands that according to the IRS Criminal Investigation Division — Asset Recovery and Investigations, the second phase of liquidation of [біткоїна] will not be completed until James Zhong’s sentencing date.»

By the way, the date of the sentencing is still unknown.

Last year in November, Zhong pleaded guilty to stealing BTC from the Silk Road marketplace (the crime was committed in 2012). In November 2021, the US authorities seized more than 50,000 BTC from his home in Georgia, worth more than $ 3 billion at the time.

Silk Road was a darknet marketplace 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.