The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States has revealed that it seized billions of dollars in bitcoin for the fiscal year 2021.
The IRS’s Criminal Investigations Cyber Crime Unit (CI CCU) seized nearly $3.5 billion in cryptocurrency this year, according to a report. The sum was a colossal proportion of the overall amount of assets seized by CI during the same time period.
“$3.5 BILLION IN CRYPTOCURRENCY REQUIRED”
“93% OF ALL CI SURVEILLANCES”
The IRS has seized cryptocurrency worth hundreds of millions of dollars in some of its most prominent seizures.
Individual X, who had hacked the coins from Silk Road, was arrested in November 2020 with more than $1 billion in Bitcoin (BTC) tied to the online drug bazaar Silk Road. Ross Ulbricht, the inventor of the Silk Road, was convicted and sentenced to life in jail six years ago. The Silk Road Bitcoin, which had previously gone undiscovered, was discovered by a blockchain intelligence business.
According to the IRS
CCU special agents and personnel analysed bitcoin transactions executed by Silk Road using a third-party Bitcoin attribution company and were able to identify 54 previously undetected Bitcoin transactions executed by Silk Road, which were the proceeds of unlawful activity stolen from Silk Road in or around 2012 and 2013.
A bitcoin address was found to be the source of these funds. CCU special agents and officers investigated that Bitcoin address further and discovered that the monies were linked to Individual X. Individual X had also hacked the funds from Silk Road, according to the investigation.
On November 3, 2020, CCU special agents seized several thousand Bitcoins as part of the investigation into the hack. The seized Bitcoin was worth over $1 billion on November 4, 2020.”
The CCU shut down Bitcoin Fog, a decade-old dark web Bitcoin money-laundering site that is suspected of moving over 1.2 million Bitcoin valued at roughly $335 million at the time of the transactions, earlier this year.
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