Bitcoin News Today: Ex NCA Officer Sentenced 5.5 Years for Stealing 50 Bitcoin Worth 4.4 Million

Paul Chowles, a former officer of the National Crime Agency (NCA), has been sentenced to 5.5 years in prison for stealing 50 Bitcoin (BTC) during the investigation of Silk Road 2.0. The stolen cryptocurrency, valued at just over £59,000 at the time of the theft, is now worth over £4.4 million. Chowles exploited his privileged access to the seized funds during a major 2014 investigation into Silk Road 2.0, a darknet marketplace that emerged after the FBI shut down the original Silk Road.

Chowles was tasked with extracting data and cryptocurrency from devices seized from Thomas White, the administrator of Silk Road 2.0. In May 2017, he transferred 50 of the 97 seized Bitcoins from a “retirement wallet” using private keys found on White’s device. The theft remained undetected for years, with investigators initially attributing the missing funds to White himself due to his technical expertise. By late 2021, the missing 50 BTC was considered untraceable.

A significant breakthrough occurred in 2022 when White, who had been released from prison, informed Merseyside Police that he believed an insider at the NCA had taken the Bitcoin. This revelation triggered a new investigation, leading to the involvement of blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. Despite Chowles using Bitcoin Fog, a mixing service designed to obscure crypto transactions, Chainalysis’s advanced tools successfully traced the complex transaction trail across multiple wallets.

Using Chainalysis Reactor, investigators visualized the movement of the funds through various stages of laundering, ultimately linking the transactions back to Chowles’s accounts. Additionally, a “default wallet” holding approximately 30 BTC, which had remained dormant for nearly five years, was discovered. Private keys to this wallet were recovered from a device found during the police search of Chowles’s residence.

Chowles pleaded guilty in May 2025 to charges of theft, transferring criminal property, and concealing criminal property. He was dismissed from the NCA shortly before his sentencing. This case highlights the challenges and complexities involved in investigating and prosecuting cryptocurrency-related crimes, as well as the importance of advanced blockchain analytics in tracing and recovering stolen funds.