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Board Bitcoin Discussion
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Re: FBI says it recovered $2 million in Bitcoin Ransomware payment... How?
by
TwitchySeal
on 08/06/2021, 01:51:14 UTC
⭐ Merited by vapourminer (1)
Talking about this with friends.  FBI doesn’t give any details, of course, but says they traced it to a Wallet and seized it.  How do you think they got it back?

Our theories are:

-Traced it to an exchange, Forced it to be turned over

It is also possible, the government is running a mixing service, and recovered the coin when the hacking group tried to launder the stolen coin via mixer.

The government specifically did not reveal how they recovered the coin. If they had not specifically kept this a secret, I would have speculated they seized the coin when they deposited it to an exchange.

I would find it fairly unlikely the government hacked the hackers, and very unlikely they were able to crack their private keys.

Seems plausible.  They would still need a seizure warrant, I assume, right?  I can't imagine the hackers would leave the money in an exchange, although it's possiblle it was part of their laundering plan.

I suppose it's also possible the FBI just seized some innocent guys money after the hackers exchanged it several times by now.


The seizure warrant was authorized earlier today by the Honorable Laurel Beeler, U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of California.
...
As alleged in the supporting affidavit, by reviewing the Bitcoin public ledger, law enforcement was able to track multiple transfers of bitcoin and identify that approximately 63.7 bitcoins, representing the proceeds of the victim’s ransom payment, had been transferred to a specific address, for which the FBI has the “private key,” or the rough equivalent of a password needed to access assets accessible from the specific Bitcoin address. This bitcoin represents proceeds traceable to a computer intrusion and property involved in money laundering and may be seized pursuant to criminal and civil forfeiture statutes.

DOJ Statement: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-seizes-23-million-cryptocurrency-paid-ransomware-extortionists-darkside