The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) claimed to have recovered $3.36 billion in stolen bitcoin assets, making it the second-largest recovery in history.
More than 50,000 bitcoins (BTC) were stolen from the home of a crypto hacker in the United States in 2021 after they were “unlawfully obtained” from the now-defunct illegal dark web market Silk Road.
After entering a guilty plea to one count of wire fraud on November 4, 2022, Gainesville, Georgia, resident James Zhong faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.
On November 7, 2022, the DOJ announced the recovery of the massive Bitcoin assets stolen in November 2021, claiming that the coins were linked to a “sophisticated scheme” to steal from the now-defunct Silk Road marketplace.
In 2013, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested the site’s creator, Ross Ulbricht, and eventually shut down the site. The latest haul of 50,676 BTC was taken from bitcoin wallets associated with Zhong. In November 2020, the U.S. government seized $1 billion worth of bitcoin linked to the site. The computer equipment containing the digital assets was discovered in a hidden safe in the basement and a popcorn tin.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams stated in a DOJ press release that “for almost 10 years, the whereabouts of this massive chunk of missing Bitcoin had ballooned into an over $3.3 billion mystery.”
Also Read: Crypto Kingpin “Hu Shi” Arrested in Japan Over Alleged Global Fraud Network
How the theft occurred
In addition to the $661,900 in cash, law enforcement discovered 25 Casascius coins (physical bitcoin), another 11.116 bitcoin, numerous silver and gold-colored bars, and one gold-colored coin while searching Zhong’s home, according to the statement.
The statement claims that from 2011 to 2013, the Silk Road operated as a “darknet” black market where massive quantities of illegal drugs and other goods were sold. Zhong had stolen the bitcoin by setting up a series of about nine fraudulent accounts on the Silk Road. Zhong also used the fraudulent accounts to trigger 140 transactions “in rapid succession” to trick Silk Road’s systems into transferring the bitcoin to his accounts. He then moved the funds to several different accounts, leaving no paper trail.
U.S. Government’s crypto seizures have grown much larger
The $3.36 billion Silk Road seizure is no longer the largest cryptocurrency seizure associated with U.S. law enforcement. In the years since the case, authorities have demonstrated that they can pursue cryptocurrency holdings at a much larger scale. This has included major investigations involving stolen Bitcoin, ransomware, fraud and other forms of crypto-enabled crime.
That shift is particularly relevant in 2026 because blockchain tracing has become a standard part of financial investigations rather than an experimental law-enforcement technique.
Recent research has also continued to improve the ability to identify illicit Bitcoin activity. A study published in August 2026, for example, developed a dataset of 2,438 manually verified illicit Bitcoin addresses linked to underground forum activity between 2010 and 2024. The research combined underground-forum evidence with on-chain validation to identify addresses associated with different categories of cybercrime.
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