Comment
Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
Over 9.4 million BTC before December 2016, the DOJ said.Users included the ransomware gang CryptoWall and Fancy Bear, the hacker group believed to be sponsored by GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. Fancy Bear hacked the computer systems of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential campaign. The hackers used BTC-e for their crypto dealings, as well as two other, unnamed crypto exchanges, according to the blockchain intelligence firm Elliptic.Other high profile users were Carl Mark Force and Shaun W. Bridges, the two FBI agents convicted for misappropriation of crypto from the Silk Road investigation. The former agents sent “several hundred thousand dollars in criminal proceeds” each to BTC-e, the unsealed indictment for Vinnik reads.“Their experience with the criminal underworld taught them that using BTC-e, as opposed to a registered exchange with anti-money laundering policies, would maximize their chances of being able to conceal criminal proceeds,” the document says.Silk Road was a popular darknet marketplace offering a wide range of illicit drugs for purchase with bitcoin. Silk Road was busted by the FBI in 2013, and its founder Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 on charges for narcotics trafficking, money laundering, computer hacking and trafficking fraudulent identity documents.As the FBI investigated the Silk Road, the two rogue agents saw a chance to make money for themselves. Carl Force offered Ulbricht fake drivers’ licenses, as well as insider information on the government’s investigation into Silk Road, in return for 925 bitcoin, which he received and used for his own benefit, according to a criminal complaint filed under seal in 2015 by then IRS special agent Tigran Gambaryan (now Binance’s head of financial crime compliance).Bridges, in turn, got access to the wallets containing Silk Road’s treasury while being a part of the FBI’s investigative team, and stole 1,600 bitcoin from those wallets. Force was sentenced to six years in prison 2015; Bridges got two years behind bars in 2017.Force and Bridges sent their ill-gotten crypto to exchanges CampBX, Bitstamp and Mt.Gox. As for BTC-e, they used it to further cover their tracks, documents show.Prisoner swap hopesThe new documents come to light as Alexander Vinnik is trying to return to his home country, Russia.Alexander Vinnik and his lawyer David Rizk convinced the Northern District court of California to unseal more documents in the case as they believe making the case more public will help advocate for Vinnik’s prisoner swap with Russia, according to the court file. Vinnik might be swapped with Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter detained in Russia under espionage charges, the newspaper wrote in May.Vinnik has spent almost five years in detention abroad. He was first detained in August
Add Comment