Former UK National Crime Agency Official Sentenced to Prison for Stealing 50 Bitcoins in Silk Road 2.0 Investigation

By: theblockbeats.news|2025/07/17 15:42:09

BlockBeats News, July 17th, according to Cointelegraph, a former official from the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) has been sentenced to prison for stealing 50 bitcoins during the Silk Road 2.0 investigation. Silk Road 2.0 was a successor to the original Silk Road, launched a month after the FBI shut down the original Silk Road and arrested its founder, Ross Ulbricht, in October 2013, and was closed by the FBI after running for a year. NCA operational officer Paul Chowles, who was involved in the investigation, was responsible for extracting and analyzing the device data of the Silk Road 2.0 co-founders during the law enforcement operation. At that time, 50 of the 97 bitcoins seized were transferred in May 2017. These bitcoins were subsequently processed through the cryptocurrency mixing service Bitcoin Fog, apparently to conceal their origin. Paul Chowles has pleaded guilty to charges of theft, transferring criminal property, and concealing criminal property, and has been sentenced to five years or more in prison. The UK's Crown Prosecution Service calculated that he illegally profited approximately £613,150 (USD 821,345) from it.

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