Silk Road Investigators Charged With Stealing Bitcoin

itwbennett writes Two former U.S. government agents face charges related to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin while assisting with an investigation of the Silk Road underground online marketplace, with one accused of using a fake online persona to extort money from operators of the site. Facing charges of wire fraud and money laundering are Carl Force, 46, of Baltimore, a former special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, and Shaun Bridges, 32, of Laurel, Maryland, a former special agent with the U.S. Secret Service. Both served on the Baltimore Silk Road Task Force, which investigated illegal activity on the Silk Road website, the Department of Justice said Monday in a press release.

Comments

Re:How did they get caught?

[Coren22]

Not to take too much away from your comment, but the secret service agents were caught because they failed to pay for it. If they had just paid no one would have ever found out.

Re:Unsealed after Ulbrich conviction

[Anonymous Coward]

What relevance to his facilitating drug-trafficking does the prosecuting agents' unrelated misconduct have?

Fruit of the poisonous tree is its relevance.

Re:Governments way to admit that bitcoins are...

[bobbied]

So why can't we trace ransomware transactions? They are always in BTC.

Who says they cannot be traced? The problem we have with ransomware is that it usually involves an area of the world where the authorities don't care so even if you trace it, nothing will be done.