The U.S. Department of Justice has seized more than $1 billion in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies linked to defunct dark web marketplace Silk Road seven years after it shut the site down and arrested its founder.

The Silk Road funds, totaling 69,370 bitcoin and equivalent amounts in forked cryptocurrencies Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold and Bitcoin SV were seized by the department Nov. 3 but only came to light following a press release today.

In the statement, the Justice Department said that it had filed a civil action for permanent forfeiture of the cryptocurrency in the Northern District of California.

“Silk Road was the most notorious online criminal marketplace of its day,” U.S. Attorney David L. Anderson said. “The successful prosecution of Silk Road’s founder in 2015 left open a billion-dollar question. Where did the money go? Today’s forfeiture complaint answers this open question at least in part. $1 billion of these criminal proceeds are now in the United States’ possession.”

Silk Road’s founder, Ross Ulbricht was found guilty on seven charges in relation to his running of Silk Road in February 2015 including conspiring to commit narcotics trafficking, conspiring to commit computer hacking and conspiring to commit money laundering. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison in May 2015 with no chance of parole.

Where the case of the missing bitcoin becomes interesting is that an unnamed hacker, described only as Individual X, allegedly stole the funds from Silk Road between May 2012 and April 2013 and has held the stolen cryptocurrency until it was seized this week.

It’s notable that while the cryptocurrency seized is worth over $1 billion today, it wasn’t at the time. During Ulbricht’s trial, a Federal Bureau of Investigations agent told the court that he had traced over 3,760 bitcoin transactions to a laptop Ulbricht owned, along with 700,000 bitcoin from Silk Road to wallets control by Ulbricht.

At the time, the bitcoin was worth $13.4 million. In another example of value changing over time, U.S. Marshals auctioned 29,565 bitcoin seized from Silk Road in 2014 at a valuation of $17 million.

The fact that the Silk Road bitcoin has been seized and could enter the market through an auction or sale, along with ongoing uncertainty over the U.S. election, caused bitcoin to surge almost 12% today, to $15,847.37 as of 9 p.m. EST — its highest price since December 2017.

Image: Dragoyx/Wikimedia Commons