Former UK National Crime Agency official sentenced to prison for stealing 50 bitcoins in Silk Road 2.0 investigation

On July 17th, according to Cointelegraph, a former National Crime Agency (NCA) official in the UK was sentenced to prison for stealing 50 bitcoins during the Silk Road 2.0 investigation. Silk Road 2.0 is a successor version of the original Silk Road, which was launched one month after the FBI closed the original Silk Road in October 2013 and arrested its founder Ross Ulbricht. It was shut down by the FBI after running for a year. NCA action officer Paul Chowles, who participated in the investigation, was responsible for extracting and analyzing device data of the co founders of Silk Road 2.0 during law enforcement operations. At the time, 50 out of 97 bitcoins were seized and transferred in May 2017. These bitcoins were then processed through the cryptocurrency mixing service Bitcoin Fog, apparently to conceal their origin. Paul Chowles has pleaded guilty to charges of theft, transfer of criminal property, and concealment of criminal property and has been sentenced to more than five years in prison. The UK Crown Prosecution Service has calculated that he illegally profited approximately £ 613150 ($821345) from it.