{"id":77273,"date":"2023-04-15T14:19:31","date_gmt":"2023-04-15T11:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=77273"},"modified":"2025-09-10T22:21:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T19:21:05","slug":"us-resident-sentenced-to-one-year-and-one-day-for-silk-road-fraud-involving-50000-btc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/us-resident-sentenced-to-one-year-and-one-day-for-silk-road-fraud-involving-50000-btc\/","title":{"rendered":"US resident sentenced to one year and one day for Silk Road fraud involving 50,000 BTC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judge Paul G. Gardef sentenced<\/a> Georgia resident James Zhong to one year and one day in prison for the theft of 50,000 BTC from the Silk Road dark-web marketplace.<\/p>\n

In September 2012, he ran a fraudulent scheme using fake accounts, not listing or purchasing any goods or services on the marketplace.<\/p>\n

Zhong deposited between 200 and 2000 BTC, after which he rapidly withdrew funds in multiples. He initiated more than 140 such transactions, collectively yielding 50,000 BTC to the defendant.<\/p>\n

On November 9, 2021, law enforcement conducted searches at Zhong’s home. They seized about 50,676 BTC ($3.36 billion at the time), $661,900 in cash, and precious-metal bars. In March 2022, he voluntarily turned over a further 1,004 BTC to authorities, which he had access to.<\/p>\n

In November 2022, Zhong pleaded guilty to fraud<\/a> using electronic means. The maximum penalty for this count is 20 years’ imprisonment.<\/p>\n

In March 2023, the U.S. government sold 9,861 BTC for $215 million<\/a>. This is only part of Zhong’s seized assets. The remaining 41,491 BTC the authorities plan to liquidate in four batches over the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judge Paul G. Gardef sentenced Georgia resident James Zhong to one year and one day in prison, and fined $10,000 for stealing 50,000 BTC from the Silk Road dark-web marketplace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1154,236,26],"class_list":["post-77273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-crimes","tag-silk-road","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"19","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77275,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77273\/revisions\/77275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}