Operation Dark Gold: U.S. police seeks to confiscate $24M in Bitcoin

The United States law enforcement agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Marshals and regular police departments, have managed to find two individuals allegedly involved in drug trade - Ryan Farace and Robert Swain, both living in Maryland. According the Department of Justice announcement, the official indictment assumes that the suspects have produced and distributed an illegal substance, while also holding a part of illicit funds in Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

Of all confiscated finance (over $22M), Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies made $17M of possessions (77%). Only $1.5 million was in cash, with a remainder of the sum being in hardware.

Interestingly, this is not all: the United States government wants to find additional 5 millions of dollars and $24M in Bitcoin (4000 BTC). While cryptocurrencies were a means to store value, payments for packages’ delivery was made via prepaid debit cards. One of the suspects, Robert Swain, is released and is currently under the surveillance of U.S. Pretrial Services. These two people are connected to a big drug trade network on the Darknet. This criminal case is a part of the wider Operation Dark Gold.

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