FBI seizes over $27 million in bitcoins, likely from Silk Road suspect

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When we left off earlier this month, the FBI had acknowledged that it seized over 26,000 bitcoins as part of its case against the Silk Road, the infamous Bitcoin- and Tor-fueled illicit marketplace.

But on Friday, an anonymous source at the FBI told Forbes that the agency has now also seized 144,000 bitcoins, worth over $27 million at current exchange rates.

The magazine reports:

The FBI official wouldn’t say how the agency had determined that the Bitcoin “wallet”–a collection of Bitcoins at a single address in the Bitcoin network–belonged to [suspect Ross Ulbricht], but that it was sure they were his. “This is his wallet,” said the FBI official. “We seized this from DPR,” the official added, referring to the pseudonym “the Dread Pirate Roberts,” which prosecutors say Ulbricht allegedly used while running the Silk Road.

When Ars called the FBI to confirm Forbes' report, Kelly J. Langmesser, a spokesperson for the FBI in New York, declined to comment.

Forbes also linked to a particular Bitcoin address, which received a massive influx of bitcoins within the last 24 hours. And just like the last time the Internet identified one of the accounts believed to be controlled by the feds, there have been new small donations to that account, ostensibly so that the donors can send comments to the owner of the account. For now, those comments appear only to be advertisements rather than insults, along the lines of "Get cheap USB hubs and networking equipment to your door in 2 days. Bitcoin only of course" and "www.zeroblock.com: Real-time Bitcoin market data and aggregated news feed."

So what will government authorities do with all these seized bitcoins once the case is wrapped up? They'll mostly likely just liquidate (read: sell) them, as with any other seized asset in a criminal case.

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