A thief has been caught after stealing a significant amount of Bitcoin.

The BBC reported that the US police in Georgia had seized $3.36 billion in Bitcoin. The indescribably large amount was stored on several devices in the man’s house. A safe was hidden under the floor, but he stashed some in a popcorn tin. The amount of money is so large that the US authorities say it is the second-largest amount seized! The house owner was James Zhong, who pleaded guilty to exploiting the flaw of the now defunct dark web site Silk Road.

Through a security hole in Silk Road’s payment system, Zhong stole the money. For example, such websites sell drugs and other services and are not easy to find: they require little IT knowledge. Such sites were the first to jump on cryptocurrencies, which have a higher degree of anonymity. (Since then, crypto theft has become reasonably common; we have written about some of them in recent years.)

Zhong committed the crime more than a decade ago, in September 2012. At that time, he set up several accounts on Silk Road and deposited small amounts of Bitcoin. He then exploited a security vulnerability to withdraw a significant amount of money from the website’s fictitious pocket within a short period, leading to, for example, hiding it in a popcorn tin. Still, Zhong also held cash (approximately $600,000).

For nearly a decade, it seemed that the 50676 Bitcoins stolen had been lost. Although the value of the cryptocurrency has dropped significantly (from $3.36 billion to about $1.1 billion, it lost two-thirds of its value), it’s still a big haul. It is a pity that the authorities have not disclosed how Zhong was found. They used cryptocurrency tracking, and Zhong could face up to 20 years behind bars for his crime…

Source: PCGamer