On Friday, 4 November 2022, James Zhong pled guilty before United States District Judge Paul G. Gardephe to committing a detestable wired fraud that totalled 50,676 Bitcoin valued at over $3.36 billion that time from the Silk Road marketplace back in September 2012. He also attempted to defraud his transactions by creating nine Silk Road accounts (“Fraud Accounts”) to conceal his identity.
Historically, In Georgia, last November 2021, it was known that U.S detectives found the stored stash that contained the unlawfully obtained Bitcoins. It was in one of Zhong’s houses in an underground safe, on a single-board computerin a popcorn tin that was submerged under the blankets stored in a bathroom closet, and this was considered the second-largest seizure ever.
According to Atty Williams: "For almost ten years, the whereabouts of this massive chunk of missing Bitcoin had ballooned into an over $3.3 billion mystery. Thanks to state-of-the-art cryptocurrency tracing and good oldfashioned police work, law enforcement located and recovered this impressive cache of crime proceeds." It's the latest warning to criminals who use a cryptocurrency that their crimes are never forgotten — and they could still face prosecution many years after offences are committed.” Atty. Williams added.
SOURCE: JUSTIVE.GOV | NOVEMBER 9 2022
