Silk Road fraudster James Zhong pleaded guilty to stealing 50,000 BTC from the Silk Road darknet marketplace in 2012.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, Zhong created 140 transactions that caused Silk Road’s withdrawal processing system to deposit 50,000 BTC into his nine accounts.
Lead up to Zhong’s plea
Zhong’s guilty plea follows a seizure of roughly 50,676 BTC ($3.3 billion) by law enforcement in Nov. 2021 from his home in Gainesville, Georgia. Zhong deposited between 200 and 2000 BTC into each of his Silk Road accounts. He then made a series of rapid withdrawals within seconds of the deposits. After that, he transferred this money out of Silk Road and consolidated the funds into two large amounts.
When the Bitcoin blockchain split to create the Bitcoin Cash hard fork in 2017, Zhong received 50,000 BCH. He converted BCH to Bitcoin using overseas exchanges. This conversion took his Bitcoin holdings to 53,500…
