The mystery of the theft of three billion dollars in bitcoin ended with a box of popcorn
The US Department of Justice has said it seized $3.36 billion worth of bitcoins stolen from a notorious darknet website last year.
Its details said that 50,676 bitcoins hidden in the hacker’s house were recovered. These bitcoins were hidden in underfloor safes and popcorn tins.
James Jong has pleaded guilty to hacking 50,000 bitcoins in 2012. They stole it from Silk Road, an illegal online trading website.
US authorities have said that this is the second largest seizure of bitcoins in history.
Police raided Mr Jong’s home in Georgia last year, but details have since been released.
It was around this time that the price of Bitcoin reached an all-time high, but now it is worth around $1.1 billion.
U.S. officials said the bitcoins were hidden in various places in the hacker’s home, such as hard drives, various data collection devices that were placed in the basement floor and inside a small computer in a popcorn tin that was kept in a bathroom closet. was kept
The police said Jong stole the bitcoins by exploiting the faulty payment system of the website Silk Road.
During September 2012, he created several accounts on the darknet’s online trading center and deposited some bitcoins into a digital wallet (wallet), but he found a way through which he could ask for more without arousing suspicion. More bitcoins were being mined.
Silk Road was actually the first commercial center of the darknet which was operated from around 2011 to 2013. It came to be used for drug dealing, buying or selling illegal drugs and other illegal goods or services.
The darknet is the part of the internet that can only be accessed by special software. In 2014, a jury unanimously found that Silk Road’s founder, Ross Olbrikt, was running it and was sentenced to life in prison.
Mr. Jong admitted on November 4 that he used to hack the website. All bitcoins have been handed over to the police before their sentencing. He faces 20 years in prison.
Lawyer Damien Williams said police used cryptocurrency tracing procedures to find the bitcoins. “For 10 years, a large sum of bitcoins was missing in the big mystery of $3.3 billion.”
“This case proves that we’re not going to stop looking for money, no matter how skillfully it’s hidden, even if that bitcoin is hidden under a circuit board in a tin of popcorn.” .’
It was the largest cryptocurrency recovery in US history at the time, however, in February 2016, more than $4 billion worth of bitcoins were recovered from the BitPhoenix hack.
