Features | This Man Hid 51 Thousand Stolen Bitcoins from Silk Road in a Snack Can
A man named Jimmy Zhong stole 51,680 Bitcoins in 2012 from the Silk Road, a dark web site for illegal goods transactions.
Later, he decided to hide the hard wallet containing the stolen assets inside a snack can after converting it into a Faraday cage to block electromagnetic waves. This was done to avoid detection through signals like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
In March 2019, Zhong contacted 911 to report a false claim that his crypto had been stolen. This was done to create an alibi or divert suspicion from himself as the main perpetrator of the theft of tens of thousands of Bitcoins from Silk Road.
However, in September 2019, Zhong made a small but fatal mistake. He accidentally transferred 118 stolen Bitcoins to a crypto exchange that implemented Know-Your-Customer (KYC) to verify user identities, which led the IRS Criminal Investigation to crack the case.
Zhong's home in Georgia, United States was raided. The police found a snack can containing digital keys linked to 50,676 Bitcoins now worth Rp90 trillion.
Additionally, dozens of hard wallets containing Bitcoins were also found purposely hidden in various parts of the house.