After the largest crypto seizure of $1 billion worth by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), blockchain investigation firm Chainalysis has launched an asset realization program to help governments and law enforcement agencies effectively manage seized crypto assets.
According to a news release published on Thursday, November 12, the program is “to help government agencies and insolvency practitioners handle, store, realize, and monitor seized assets.” To make this possible, Chainalysis has partnered with Asset Reality, the company that manages and realizes confiscated assets for public and private sector clients around the world, to help law enforcement determine how to sell seized funds.
The Largest Crypto Seizure
The launch of this program follows last week’s seizure of $1 billion worth of Bitcoin by the US Department of Justice (DOJ). According to the reports, these funds were used or intended to be used to facilitate narcotics sales on the darknet marketplace Silk Road.
According to US DOJ, Silk Road was the most notorious online criminal marketplace of its day generating sales revenue totaling over 9.5 million Bitcoins and commissions from these sales totaling over 600,000 Bitcoins.
With the help of Chainalysis, the Criminal Investigation branch of the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS CI) was able to identify 54 previously undetected bitcoin transactions executed by Silk Road. These funds were traced to a bitcoin address connected to an individual named Individual X, who hacked the funds from Silk Road. By Leveraging Chainalysis tools and investigative assistance, law enforcement agencies were able to seize $1 billion worth of Bitcoins on November 3.
As law enforcement becomes more and more sophisticated in investigating illegal activity involving cryptocurrencies, governments and insolvency practitioners need a safe way to track, store, and ultimately sell seized cryptocurrency assets for fiat currency. So, according to Chainalysis, “the need for digital asset realization services is growing.”
Chainalysis and Asset Realty are offering government clients a program for storing and selling forfeited crypto assets.
Jason Bonds, Chief Revenue Officer of Chainalysis, commented:
“As cryptocurrencies become more mainstream, they will increasingly be used by good and bad actors alike. Chainalysis is dedicated to building trust in digital assets, and that means helping to detect and investigate the illicit activity. As our government partners become more successful in rooting out bad actors, assisting them with asset recovery and realization is a natural next step.”
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