The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York has announced that an individual has pled guilty to wire fraud charges connected to “unlawfully obtained” Bitcoin from the Silk Road marketplace in 2012.

In a Nov. 7 announcement, the U.S. Justice Department said James Zhong pled guilty to wire fraud charges related to executing a scheme to steal roughly 50,676 Bitcoin (BTC) from Silk Road. Authorities seized the Bitcoin from Zhong’s home in the state of Georgia in November 2021, at which time the total value of the crypto was roughly $3.36 billion.

“James Zhong committed wire fraud over a decade ago when he stole approximately 50,000 Bitcoin from Silk Road,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. “For almost ten years, the whereabouts of this massive chunk of missing Bitcoin had ballooned into an over $3.3 billion mystery.”

Williams cited “state-of-the-art cryptocurrency tracing” and “good old-fashioned police work” in the authorities tracking down and recovering the stolen BTC. IRS special agents raided Zhong’s property, finding more than 50,491 BTC in a floor safe and “on a single-board computer that was submerged under blankets in a popcorn tin” in addition to another hoard of more than 11 BTC, $661,900 in cash, and 25 Casascius coins worth roughly 174 BTC.

According to the Justice Department, Zhong’s scheme involved creating nine accounts on the marketplace to conceal his identity and triggering more than 140 transactions in short order “to trick Silk Road’s withdrawal-processing system” to send the BTC. He was able to set up the accounts with “the bare minimum of information” and didn’t conduct any listings or sales. After withdrawing more BTC than he had deposited, Zhong moved the funds out of