Silk Road 2.0 administrator has his bitcoin assets seized

Updated on: November 08, 2021 3:37 PM

Vilius Petkauskas
Deputy Editor

Jailed 26-year-old, Thomas White, was ordered to hand over more than £490,000 ($668,000) to the authorities.

The National Crime Agency (NCA), the British FBI equivalent, announced that a court ordered White to repay over £490,000 from his bitcoin holdings.

White, sentenced to serve over five years in UK prison for his involvement in Silkroad 2.0, an illicit dark web drug trade ring, launched the infamous site after authorities took down the original Silkroad in 2013.

According to the NCA, White, who had no legitimate income at the time, paid £10,700 ($14,500) upfront to rent a luxurious flat in an upscale neighborhood of Liverpool. Authorities were quick to notice.

Once White was jailed, the NCA did not stop investigating his finances and eventually tracked over half a million dollars in bitcoin assets.

In 2019 White was jailed on several accounts involving drug trafficking, money laundering, and storing of indecent images of children.

According to Tyrone Surgeon, Branch commander at the NCA, White was a high-ranking member of the original Silk Road hierarchy and used that to his advantage once the original site was closed down.

“This has been a complex, international investigation and highlights that we will use every tool at our disposal to disrupt organized criminals from profiting from their crime,” Surgeon said.

Last year, the US Justice Department seized over $1 billion worth of bitcoin associated with Silk Road. The assets were in possession of a hacker who stole the funds from the website.

Creator of the original Sild Road, Ross Ulbricht, was convicted in 2015 of seven counts of enabling illegal drug sales via bitcoin. He was sentenced to life in prison and lost an attempted appeal in 2017.