This is Jimmy
In 2012, he discovered a vulnerability in the dark web Silk Road and quietly stole 51,680 Bitcoins.
For the next decade, he hid the private keys to these Bitcoins in a popcorn can, and no one knew.
Until he called the police and personally sent himself to jail: 🧵
Jimmy was born in 1991, with parents who immigrated from mainland China to the U.S., living in hardship.
His mother was a night-shift nurse, and his father made a living by picking up scraps, later leading to a marriage breakdown.
As a Chinese, Jimmy was not popular in school and was often bullied.
According to him, the most humiliating moment was when his pants were pulled down in public during a football game.
Jimmy began to become silent, no longer striving to fit in, hiding behind his computer.
He has a very high IQ and received the HOPE scholarship in Georgia when he graduated from high school.
However, during college, he began to drink heavily.
But in early 2009, he迎來了一個重大轉折...
While browsing a programming forum, Jimmy came across a post about a new digital currency called 'Bitcoin'.
He had programming skills and saw the potential of this technology at a glance.
Thus, Jimmy became one of the earliest individuals to mine Bitcoin on a notebook.
He mined on a laptop, able to extract hundreds of Bitcoins daily.
At first, he didn't make much money, even forgetting he had this batch of coins.
Until 2011, he discovered that Bitcoin had risen to $30 each.
But unfortunately, he lost the wallet.
So he decided to re-enter the Bitcoin circle, registered a new account on the forum Bitcoin Talk, with a username from his dream car: Mercedes 300 SD.
After playing for a while, he gained some Bitcoins.
What pleased him more was that he successfully recovered the Bitcoins he mined in 2009, but he ultimately lost 5,000 of them.
Because its hard drive experienced irreparable failure, leading to the Bitcoins being forever lost.
With a large amount of Bitcoin in hand, Jimmy experienced the feeling of being rich for the first time.
Thus, Jimmy repeatedly exploited this loophole, stealing a total of 51,680 BTC.
At that time, the total value of these coins was about $700,000, and by the time the case occurred in 2021, it was worth over $3.4 billion.
After stealing these Bitcoins, Jimmy laundered the funds through cryptocurrency mixers.
He began staying in luxury hotels, shopping at luxury brands like Gucci and LV.
He also bought a lakeside villa, with a yacht and a jet ski.
He lived a dream life.
He had rented a private jet to take friends to a football game, giving each person $10,000 to let them splurge in Beverly Hills.
This luxurious lifestyle lasted for many years until one day...
In March 2019, his home was robbed, losing $400,000 in cash and 150 Bitcoins.
He dialed 911 and told the operator:
"I had a panic attack."
The police couldn't clarify the case, but this report drew the attention of the IRS.
After that, he hired private detective Robin Martinelli to investigate the burglary case.
Martinelli analyzed the surveillance footage, identified the suspect, and suspected it was someone Jimmy knew.
But Jimmy refused to continue investigating people around him.
She said: "Jimmy is very lonely; he just wants friends."
But at this time, the IRS had quietly intervened and linked Jimmy's IP with the Silk Road hacker wallet for analysis.
In the same year, he needed to invest $9.5 million for a real estate investment.
Therefore, he began to split and organize the early wallets, and during one transfer, accidentally mixed the Silk Road original wallet with legitimate assets.
This was a fatal mistake:
In November 2021, the FBI, together with the IRS, raided his house in Georgia.
Search revealed:
• There is a safe under the tiles
• Contains gold bars, silver bars, Bitcoin wallet private keys, physical Bitcoin (souvenirs)
• $661,900 in cash
• A laptop hidden in a Cheetos popcorn can
Inside was a private key storing over 50,000 Bitcoins.
Official report: This operation became the second largest cryptocurrency seizure case in U.S. history.
The first was the 94,000 BTC sought by the 2022 Bitfinex hacker.
They ultimately recovered a total of 51,680 Bitcoins that Jimmy handed over, worth $3.4 billion.
In 9 years, even though he spent lavishly, he only used less than 1%.
On July 14, 2023, Jimmy was sentenced to 1 year and 1 day of federal imprisonment for telecommunication fraud.
The case was lightly sentenced for several reasons:
• Voluntarily pleaded guilty
• No violent behavior
• Full restitution of assets
• First-time offender
• Signed a plea agreement for a reduced sentence
Jimmy's lawyer argued:
"If Jimmy hadn't stolen these coins, the government would have auctioned them as early as 2014 for only $14 million."
"But now, because Jimmy 'held' it for 9 years, the government sold it for $60,000 each, making over $3 billion in total."
Thank you for reading!
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