Feds say 2 of their agents in Silk Road probe laundered Bitcoins; one is accused of working as mole
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In the course of investigating now-convicted mastermind Ross Ulbricht in the Silk Road case, the feds seized Bitcoins worth some $33 million.
But the official probe wasn’t the only drain on the anonymous digital currency used by the online black-market bazaar, the government now alleges.
In a criminal complaint unsealed Monday in San Francisco, the feds say two of the government’s own special agents working on a Baltimore-based task force made off with Bitcoins from the Silk Road site, either directly or indirectly. And one of the two even allegedly worked for Ulbricht as a mole, according to CNN, the New York Times (reg. req.), Reuters and Wired.
Carl Force, 46, was a lead investigator in the Silk Road probe, working for the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Shaun Bridges, 32, was a forensic computer expert with the U.S. Secret Service, at the time in question.
Arrested Monday, Bridges is charged with wire fraud and money laundering. He is accused of using a series of wire transfers to steal over $800,000 in Bitcoins that had been taken from Silk Road in 2013 and transferred to the Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange in Tokyo. Within a few days, he allegedly signed a federal warrant to seize millions of dollars worth of Bitcoins from Mt. Gox accounts, reports CNN.
Meanwhile, Force obtained $250,000 worth of Bitcoins directly, prosecutors said, by extorting them from Ulbricht, Reuters reports. Force was authorized to communicate with Ulbricht, who was known as “Dread Pirate Roberts.” He also allegedly used unauthorized personas to contact Ulbricht on his own behalf.
Accused of acting as a mole and selling to Ulbricht information about the then-ongoing federal probe, Force is charged with wire fraud, money laundering, theft of government property and conflict of interest.
A Department of Justice press release provides more details.
See also:
ABAJournal.com: “Thefts of $470M in bitcoins spur lawsuits, calls for regulation; a ‘bitcoin paradox,’ law prof says”
