U.S. to Sell $130 Million Worth of Bitcoin Related to Silk Road Case

The United States has filed a notice that it plans to sell more than $130 million worth of bitcoins related to the Silk Road case. The public notice lists two batches of bitcoins the government plans to sell. The first batch is about 2,800 BTC, worth about $129 million, and the second smaller batch is 58 BTC, worth about $3 million. The bitcoins are linked to Ryan Farace, who was sentenced last year to 54 months in prison in Maryland for money-laundering conspiracy.Farace and his father, Joseph, were convicted of laundering bitcoins used in drug transactions that were supposed to be confiscated by the U.S. Farace, who was convicted for the first time in 2018, claimed to have no access to bitcoins used for transactions on the dark web. However, he and his father were found to have conspired to "transfer more than 2,874 bitcoins to a third party in order to move funds to foreign bank accounts." The first shipment of bitcoins was also linked to Shaun Bridges, a former Secret Service agent and member of the Silk Road Task Force in Baltimore.In 2015, Bridges was sentenced to six years in prison for stealing bitcoins during the U.S. government's investigation of the Silk Road darknet marketplace.Farace's father and son were ordered to confiscate their bitcoins, and Bridges agreed to "to turn over the stolen bitcoins to U.S. agents."