UK Crime Officer Jailed for Stealing 50 Bitcoins Worth £4.4M During Silk Road Investigation
A former National Crime Agency officer has been sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison for stealing 50 Bitcoins worth £4.4 million ($5.9 million) from evidence seized during a Silk Road investigation, using cryptocurrency mixers to launder the funds through multiple transactions over four years.
Paul Chowles, 42, was part of the NCA team investigating organized criminal networks on the dark web marketplace Silk Road and its successor, Silk Road 2.0.
Paul Chowles source: cps.gov.uk
How He Got Access to the Funds In the First Place
According to a report from CPS, Chowles led the analysis and extraction of cryptocurrency from devices seized from Thomas White, the co-founder of Silk Road 2.0, who was sentenced to 64 months in prison in April 2019.
Between May 6 and 7, 2017, Chowles transferred 50 of the 97 Bitcoins seized from White’s “retirement wallet” to public addresses in two transactions.
The stolen cryptocurrency was then processed through Bitcoin Fog, a notorious mixing service used to launder criminal proceeds and obscure transaction trails.
The officer converted the Bitcoin to pounds sterling and spent the funds using Cryptopay and Wirex debit cards over several years.
He made 279 transactions totaling £23,309 with the Cryptopay card and spent £79,885 through the Wirex account between August 2021 and July 2022.
At Liverpool Crown Court, Chowles pleaded guilty to theft, transferring criminal property, and concealing criminal property.
The Crown Prosecution Service calculated that he benefited financially to the value of £613,147 through his criminal activities, though the stolen Bitcoin was worth only £59,409 at the time of theft.
Silk Road Co-Founder Exposes Internal Theft
The theft remained undetected for years as the NCA investigation team initially assumed White had somehow accessed his wallet and removed the Bitcoin himself.
By late 2021, the missing cryptocurrency had been deemed untraceable by authorities.
White, who had been convicted and faced Proceeds of Crime Act proceedings with a confiscation order of £1,560,506, noticed the unauthorized transfer and informed police.
He stated that only someone within the NCA could have accessed his cryptocurrency wallet since they possessed the private keys.
The NCA sold the remaining 47 Bitcoins to fulfill part of White’s confiscation order, leaving £1,066,956 outstanding.
Merseyside Police assumed responsibility for managing White in the local area following his release on licence in early 2022 after completing his custodial sentence.
During a meeting between Merseyside Police and NCA counterparts to discuss the White investigation, officers learned about the stolen Bitcoin.
Chowles attended this meeting, where the theft was discussed openly among law enforcement personnel.
Merseyside Police launched an investigation into the missing cryptocurrency and arrested Chowles in May 2022.
Officers recovered an iPhone linking him to accounts used for Bitcoin transfers, along with browser search history related to cryptocurrency exchange services.
Evidence Trail Reveals Systematic Cryptocurrency Laundering
Police discovered several notebooks in Chowles’ office containing usernames, passwords, and statements relating to White’s cryptocurrency accounts.
The notebooks provided crucial evidence of his access to the seized digital assets and his systematic method of theft.
Notably, Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis also assisted in tracking the movement of funds through various exchanges and mixing services.
The company’s tools identified how portions of the stolen Bitcoin were converted to cash at exchanges and loaded onto crypto-enabled debit cards for easier spending.
The timing of the theft coincides with broader scrutiny of government Bitcoin sales and seizures.
The U.S. Department of Justice received approval in December 2024 to sell 69,370 Bitcoins, worth approximately $6.5 billion, seized from Silk Road.
However, President Trump’s administration had proposed creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve instead of liquidating seized assets.
Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the original Silk Road, received a full presidential pardon in January 2025 after serving over a decade in prison.
His case became one of the most high-profile prosecutions in cryptocurrency history, processing over 1.5 million transactions worth $213 million in Bitcoin.
The Crown Prosecution Service has indicated it will pursue confiscation proceedings against Chowles to recover the remaining financial benefit from his criminal activities.
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