Victoria Police confiscated over $6 million in Bitcoin during an investigation into internet drug trafficking, a record for Australian law enforcement.
In the country’s largest-ever cryptocurrency capture, police in the Australian state of Victoria confiscated about A$8.5 million ($6 million) in Bitcoin from internet drug dealers.
Victoria Police also confiscated substances suspected to be cannabis, Psilocin, MDMA, prescription medication, and “white powder and crystals.” according to a press statement. According to local news outlet The Age, the seized cryptocurrency is believed to be Bitcoin.
“This is the 21st-century version of drug trafficking and money laundering, with criminals using technology to enable immense amounts of community harm and misery,” Victoria Police Crime Command Commander Mick Frewen said in a statement accompanying the release.
A lady, 31, and a guy, 30, were arrested and interviewed before being released pending further investigation. The woman was charged with marijuana possession.
According to The Age, authorities are looking into the pair’s activity on the now-defunct Silk Road website. The arrests and seizures, according to Victoria Police, were made as part of an investigation begun in 2021 into “drug trafficking on a dark web platform dating back to 2012.”
“Police actively work on these forums and receive information from a wide range of sources including our Australian and international law enforcement partners,” Frewen explained.
Silk Road, one of the first and most popular dark web marketplaces, was one of the first to accept Bitcoin payments. It conducted a brisk business in drugs and other illegal (and legal) things until the FBI shut it down in 2013. According to a Mashable investigation from 2013, the site generated over $1.2 billion in revenue over a two-year period.
Ross Ulbricht (a.k.a. “Dread Pirate Roberts”), the founder of Silk Road, was arrested in 2013 during an FBI sting operation. Ulbricht was sentenced to double life in prison without the chance of parole after being convicted of money laundering, conspiracy to commit computer hacking, and conspiracy to trade narcotics.
He definitely has issues, but the sentencing seems a bit high
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2021Ulbricht has become a cause célèbre for crypto enthusiasts, with 200,000 signatures on a petition to liberate him in 2019 and a Times Square billboard advocating for his release in 2020.
Ulbricht’s chances of receiving clemency from then-President Trump were crushed when he wasn’t listed among a flurry of pardons issued during Trump’s final days in office. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, spoke in on Ulbricht’s sentence in 2021, calling it “a bit high.”
The authorities may rue the fact that much of the site’s Bitcoin was seized and auctioned off by law enforcement.
Since 2013, the price of Bitcoin has risen dramatically, and the government has lost billions of dollars by selling rather than hanging onto the stolen Bitcoin. Tim Draper, a venture capitalist, purchased almost 30,000 BTC from Silk Road in July 2014.
It was valued about $19 million at the time, but it’s now worth $1.4 billion.
However, as of November 2020, some of the money from Silk Road is still missing, with as much as 444,000 BTC (worth $20 billion at current prices) reportedly still missing. They’ll be added to the 3.7 million Bitcoins that will very certainly be gone forever.