14 DAY TRIAL // The feds grabbed the alleged owner of the infamous Silk Road drug online marketplace Ross Ulbricht a few weeks ago. They also boasted about the tens of millions of dollars that he allegedly made from commissions on the site.
But the FBI only managed to grab bitcoins belonging to Silk Road users, a few million dollar's worth, but not Ulbricht's mythical stash.
That has changed, apparently. The FBI is now in control of 144,000 bitcoins, worth around $28 million (€20 million) at today's somewhat inflated Bitcoin rates. The crypto currency has actually been gaining value since the raid and has appreciated quite a lot.
The feds are quite positive that the Bitcoin wallet they seized belongs to Ulbricht, they identified the owner as Dread Pirate Roberts, the alias used by Ulbricht on the site.
There are reasons to believe that a separate wallet containing 111,000 bitcoins, worth about $22 million (€16 million), also belongs to Ulbricht, but the FBI needs a bit more evidence to determine that.