Ex-NCA Officer Must Repay $2.4M for Bitcoin He Stole When It Was Worth $77K

In brief

• A UK court has ordered former National Crime Agency officer Paul Chowles to pay £1,810,678.93, around $2.4 million.
• He stole 50 BTC from a wallet seized during an investigation into the dark web marketplace Silk Road 2.0.
• The coins were worth about £60,000, or $77,000, when he took them in 2017.

A former National Crime Agency officer has been ordered to repay £1,810,678.93, around $2.4 million, over the theft of 50 Bitcoin from a wallet seized in a dark web investigation, coins that were worth roughly £60,000, or $77,000, when he took them nine years ago.

The Crown Prosecution Service secured the confiscation order against Paul Chowles, 44, of Bristol, on Wednesday under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

Thirty of the 50 BTC were recovered from Chowles, with the order including their total value. The CPS attributes the gap between the two figures to Bitcoin's appreciation since 2017.

Chowles was part of the NCA team investigating Silk Road 2.0, the marketplace Thomas White launched weeks after the FBI shut down the original Silk Road in 2013. He took the lead on analyzing and extracting cryptocurrency from devices seized in the case, then moved 50 BTC out of a confiscated wallet and tried to obscure where it went.