Federal agents charged with stealing Silk Road Bitcoins

[jaysabi]

Well this is entertaining! One of these clowns deposited his stolen coins with Mt. Gox. 

2 former federal agents charged with stealing Bitcoin during Silk Road probe
By Evan Perez, CNN Justice Reporter

Washington (CNN)The federal government became owners of one of the biggest troves of Bitcoin, thanks to seizing millions of dollars in the digital currency from criminals associated with the online black market Silk Road.

Two federal agents who led the probe allegedly decided they wanted some of the money for themselves, according to a new federal court documents.

The two now-former agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Secret Service are charged with wire fraud, money laundering and other offenses for allegedly stealing Bitcoin during the federal investigation of Silk Road, an underground illicit black market federal prosecutors shut down last year.

The charges in a criminal complaint filed in San Francisco federal court paints a picture of corrupt federal agents trying to enrich themselves as they tried to bring down one of the Internet's top cybercriminals.

The charges against the agents could end up causing complications for the government's case against Ross Ulbricht, also known as "Dread Pirate Roberts", the Silk Road founder. Ulbricht was found guilty last year of aiding drug trafficking with his site.​ He is awaiting sentencing. As a result of the case against Ulbricht and others, the federal government seized bitcoin that it said at the time was valued at over $33 million.

The agents are: Carl Force, 46 years old, of Baltimore, a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Shaun Bridges, 32, of Laurel, Maryland, a special agent with the U.S. Secret Service.

Force was a lead agent in the case and was the main investigator communicating with Ulbricht. Force is charged with wire fraud, theft of government property, money laundering and conflict of interest.

Bridges was the computer forensics expert on the case. He is charged with wire fraud and money laundering.

Force allegedly set up fake online personas and tried to extort money from Ulbricht, including once trying to get $250,000 from him in exchange for not providing information to federal investigators, the criminal complaint says.

Using the online persona "French Maid," Force did succeed in getting $100,000 in Bitcoin from Ulbricht, which Force deposited in his personal accounts, the federal complaint says. He later used a series of Bitcoin and personal U.S. dollar transactions, including a $235,000 wire transfer to an account in Panama, to launder the stolen money, prosecutors allege in the complaint.

According to prosecutors, Force also used his position as an executive at a digital currency exchange called CoinMKT, in which he was an investor, to seize accounts of customers. He transferred $297,000 in illegally-seized digital currency to his personal accounts, prosecutors allege in the criminal complaint.

Bridges allegedly stole $820,000, using a series of wire transfers to move Bitcoin that earlier had been stolen from Silk Road in early 2013 and deposited in a Japanese bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, according to prosecutors. Two days later, Bridges signed the government's warrant to seize millions of dollars in bitcoin from Mt. Gox accounts.

Later, when he learned the FBI was investigating suspicious activity in the Silk Road investigation, he transferred $250,000 from his personal account to one he shared with someone else, according to the complaint.

[BurtW]

Well this just brightened up an otherwise shitty day for me.  Thanks for that you fucking federal clowns.

[Chef Ramsay]

These guys know that bitcoin is something they ought to have but they should've just went and bought them themselves. They probably had some idea how it works but they shouldn't have thought their moves were anonymous to their peers that were keeping an eye on the chain.

[Chef Ramsay]

Feds Charged With Stealing Money During Silk Road Investigation

Two former federal agents who investigated the Silk Road, the infamous online drug marketplace seized by the FBI in 2013, have been charged for their own outrageous digital crimes, including stealing money they acquired on their druggie undercover assignment.

Former DEA officer Carl Mark Force IV (what kind of name is that? sounds like his parents were celebrities) and former Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges, both part of a Baltimore-based task force devoted to taking down the Silk Road, are accused of wire fraud and money laundering. Force is also accused of theft of government property.

Force was actually the lead agent tasked with establishing communication with the Dread Pirate Roberts, but the complaint against him alleges that he did a lot more than that, according to a Justice Department memo stating he "developed additional online personas and engaged in a broad range of illegal activities." The complaint says he stole from the government and third parties.

Possibly the most messed up charge against Force involves the undercover officer secretly screwing with the investigation to make money. The complaint says Force tried to extort Dread Pirate Roberts by saying he'd give the government information unless DPR paid $250,000. The complaint also says that Force created a persona called "French Maid" and convinced DPR to pay "French Maid" $100,000 for information on the government's investigation.

Meanwhile, Bridges used his knowledge of Mt. Gox, the Bitcoin exchange he was also investigating, to divert $820,000 of the money he used undercover into secret personal accounts on the now-defunct exchange. Bridges self-surrendered today.

So during the investigation that led to the arrest and controversial trial of Ross Ulbricht, who was convicted on drug kingpin charges for running the site, federal agents were siphoning off Bitcoin they obtained while sneaking around the drug site undercover. Maybe they didn't realize that Bitcoin isn't really anonymous?

This looks like VERY good news for Ulbricht, since it makes the Silk Road investigation look enormously sketchy. Two officers full-on breaking bad on the job isn't exactly a stellar sign that the case was conducted above-board. And government agency sketchiness is exactly why Ulbricht's defense lawyer Robert Dratchel filed for a retrial: Dratchel said the government didn't provide exculpatory evidence in time, and that it conducted warrantless surveillance.

Dratchel's accusations remain unproven, but now it's clear there was some fraudulent behavior going down on the government's side.

More...http://gizmodo.com/feds-charged-with-stealing-money-during-silk-road-inves-1694535493

[bryant.coleman]

Large sums of money can be tempting... sometimes. That said, I don't see any chance of Ross Ulbricht benefiting from this. He has to chose between life without parole and a custodial death.