Federal agent sentenced to 6 years in prison for embezzling Silk Road Bitcoin

     NetEase Technology News, December 9, according to foreign media Engadget, federal agent Shaun Bridge was sentenced to 71 months, or 6 and a half years in prison, for embezzling confiscated Bitcoins. Shaun Bridge embezzled 20,000 Bitcoins from the drug trading website Silk Road when he confiscated them. The market price was about $350,000 at the time, but these Bitcoins are currently worth about $8 million. The increased value of the case has led to a heavier sentence.

     U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg found Shaun Bridge guilty of money laundering and obstruction of justice. He called it an extremely serious violation of the government's trust in the public. Bridge was a member of the Baltimore Silk Road Task Force, who targeted the drug dealer's account and blocked it, then stole 20,000 bitcoins from it.

     Bridge was able to intervene in the investigation of the Silk Road website in 2013 through an agreement between the FBI and drug dealer Curtis Green. In his testimony, drug dealer Green stated that federal agents had asked him to explain how to change the password. Bridge then used Green's account to transfer Bitcoin to his own name. But this behavior was easily discovered by Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road. Green said that Ulbricht and his senior adviser Variety Jones had sent him countless death threats.

     But Bridge was an unfortunate bad cop, because he could not keep the stolen bitcoins in the original wallet, so he stored them in the Mt.Gox exchange. Yes, it was the bitcoin exchange that later went bankrupt. It was also because of the collapse of Mt.Gox that Bridge's corruption was exposed. At present, the judge also requires Bridge to compensate for the bitcoins he embezzled that year, and the compensation amount is 651,000 US dollars.