Ex-NCA Officer Jailed for Swiping $4.4M in Bitcoin from Silk Road 2.0 Bust

The Inside Job That Shook the Crypto World

Holy smokes! A former National Crime Agency bigwig just got slammed with a 5.5-year jail sentence for snatching 50 BTC right under everyone's noses during the takedown of Silk Road 2.0. This dude, Paul Chowles, 42, totally abused his insider status back in 2014 when the NCA was hot on the trail of the infamous darknet marketplace.

Get this: those 50 Bitcoins were worth just over £59,000 at the time, but now? We're talking a whopping £4.4 million! Chowles, who was knee-deep in the investigation, pulled off this heist by dipping into a "retirement wallet" and swiping the coins with private keys he found on Silk Road 2.0 admin Thomas White's device. Sneaky, right?

Here's the kicker: the theft flew under the radar for years, and everyone thought it was White who had pulled a fast one. They figured his tech savvy meant he could've snagged the wallet, but they were dead wrong. By the end of 2021, those 50 BTC were chalked up as gone for good.

But hold up! In a plot twist for the ages, White, fresh out of the slammer, spilled the beans to Merseyside Police in 2022. He pointed the finger straight at the NCA, saying only their crew had access to those wallet keys. Boom! A whole new investigation kicked off.

The NCA teamed up with blockchain sleuths at Chainalysis to track down the stolen loot. Even though Chowles tried to throw them off with Bitcoin Fog, a shady mixing service, Chainalysis's badass tools cracked the case wide open. They traced the Bitcoin's wild ride through countless wallets, piecing together the puzzle bit by bit.

With Chainalysis Reactor, the investigators watched the funds zigzag through laundering stages, finally connecting the dots back to Chowles's accounts. And guess what? They stumbled upon a "default wallet" with around 30 BTC that had been chilling untouched for almost five years. The keys to this wallet? Found on a device in Chowles's own home during a police raid.

In May 2025, Chowles copped to theft, moving dirty money, and hiding it away. He got the boot from the NCA just before they threw the book at him. Talk about a fall from grace!