More jail time awaits Shaun Bridges, the former Secret Service agent who is already serving a six-year sentence for funneling BTC to his personal account while investigating online black market Silk Road.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg handed an extra two years’ prison sentence to Bridges after he pleaded guilty to money laundering in another criminal case connected to the dark net.
The 35-year-old former Secret Service agent admitted in 2015 that he stole 20,000 BTC while investigating the online black market in 2013. Bridges pleaded guilty to money laundering and obstruction charges, and left the Secret Service. However, authorities found that the former agent transferred more of the seized digital currency—over 1,600 BTC—to an account in a different exchange. The second set of BTC is worth over $11 million in today’s trading prices.
In August, Bridges admitted that he used a private key to access a digital wallet belonging to the U.S. government, then transferred the BTC to other digital wallets at other bitcoin exchanges, which only he had access. U.S. agents tracked down 600 of the missing BTC, and Bridges agreed to turn over the rest as part of his plea deal.
Bridges was part of a task force investigating Silk Road, described as one of the most sophisticated criminal marketplaces on the internet, along with former Drug Enforcement Administration agent Carl Force, who also pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering, obstruction of justice.
Ross Ulbricht, who operated the dark net marketplace under the name Dread Pirate Rogers from 2011 to 2013, was sentenced to a lifetime behind bars after he was found guilty by the Manhattan jury on seven charges, including drug trafficking, money laundering and a whole host of other cyber crimes. In October, Ulbricht dropped his claims to more than 144,000 BTC seized from Silk Road.
