Authorities traced the Bitcoin in a scam to Silk Road , a drug sales site, in 2012.
The United States Department of Justice found 3.36 billion in Bitcoin related to a fraud perpetrated on Silk Road , a Dark Web site where drugs were traded.
In a press release, it is specified that the US authorities seized more than 50 thousand Bitcoin hidden in a box of popcorn inside a safe in the home of James Zhong in Georgia.
The Bitcoins were stored in a disconnected memory inside the can
The 50,491,062 Bitcoin were seized in November 2021, when the cryptocurrency was worth just over $66,000, making it worth $3.36 billion.
With the devaluation of the cryptocurrency to $20,000, the more than 50,000 Bitcoin would be worth just over $1 billion.
The Billionaire Scam: How did they track the Bitcoin?
Zhong abused the Silk Road systems in 2012 to seize what was then just hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoin .
He then passed them on to different accounts and systems in the hope that his Bitcoin could not be traced.
However, prosecutors used cryptocurrency trackers and “old-fashioned police work.”