The FBI scored a big win against digital crime when they took down Silk Road last week and seized 26,000 Bitcoins from user accounts. However, they still don’t have the 600,000 Bitcoins that were commissions paid for the sale of Bitcoins. Where are they?
When the FBI arrested Silk Road boss Ross William Ulbricht and took his site down, they seized the site’s assets which were primarily the currency of choice on the anonymous online drug bazaar: Bitcoins. A whole lot of Bitcoins.
In the criminal complaint against Ulbricht, the FBI said that the Silk Road had total sales of over 9.5 million Bitcoins, collecting a revenue of 600,000 of the digital coin. (Given the current price — $140/Bitcoin — that’s $1.2 billion in sales and $80 million in commissions.)