US Government to Sell Over $130 Million in Bitcoin Linked to Silk Road Forfeitures

According to Blockworks, the United States has filed a notice to sell over $130 million in bitcoin linked to the Silk Road forfeitures. The public notification lists two lots of bitcoin that the government plans to sell. The first is roughly 2,800 BTC for about $129 million, and the second, smaller lot would sell 58 BTC for approximately $3 million. The bitcoins are connected to Ryan Farace, who was sentenced in Maryland last year to 54 months in prison on a charge of money laundering conspiracy. Farace and his father, Joseph, were found guilty of laundering bitcoin initially used for drug trafficking that should have been forfeited to the US. Farace, initially convicted in 2018, claimed not to have access to bitcoin used for darknet transactions. However, he and his father were found to have conspired in an attempt to transfer more than 2,874 Bitcoin to a third party so that the funds could be moved into a foreign bank account. The first lot of bitcoin was also tied to Shaun Bridges, a former Secret Service agent and part of the Baltimore Silk Road Task Force. Bridges was sentenced to a six-year prison term in 2015 in connection with the theft of BTC during the US government's investigation of the Silk Road dark marketplace. Both Farace's were ordered to forfeit their bitcoin, while Bridges agreed to turn over the stolen bitcoin to US agents.