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The secret life of Jimmy Zhong, who stole – and lost – more than $3 billion::CNBC obtained never-before-seen body camera footage that shows how investigators linked Jimmy Zhong to the Silk Road hack
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I’d completely forgotten this happened. Wild stuff.
Those chicks loved him for his personality, too. What a bummer. Hope they wait for him to get out.
In the end, Zhong didn’t get to keep the stolen bitcoin. The U.S. government seized those assets. Officials opened a process that allowed victims of the hack to apply to get their bitcoin back, according to a forfeiture document CNBC reviewed. Nobody came forward to claim the loot. That’s not surprising, given that users of Silk Road in 2012 were largely drug dealers and their customers.
Hilarious that they even tried
Wonder what job offers awaits this guy once he’s free next year
Job offers?! HA.
You’re thinking too small. This has a fucking Adam McKay / Social Network Fincher movie adaptation written all over it.
If Zhong has not already been contacted by a hundred different ghost writers or publishers offering to write a book + movie / mini-series adaptation of his story, I’d be surprised.
This shit is just a more modern Catch Me If You Can / Wolf of Wall Street type situation - but with an arguably more sympathetic character - who gave his friends 10s of thousands of dollars to go on shopping sprees.
The amount of money he’ll make just from the royalties paid out for an adaptation of this would be enough to at least make back some significant portion of the money he stole.
Same as that piece of shit still doing speaking engagements from The Wolf of Wall Street.
People eat that shit up.
I still want to see a badass version of the Kim Dotcom whole fiasco
But do you really need to pay him anything? I guess for mentioning the name and I guess that’s a selling point… But not even sure if that’s needed, like if I make a movie about somebody’s life what really need permission for? Their image? I mean if I have somebody different but same story would that count? Idk… I never quite got an idea of exactly up to which point you need to deal with the person of the story or their family
He also promoted a trypto scam. Guess some people never change
Now that’s thinking way too big. This dude is not a household name like Facebook. You’d probably have to ask a few hundred people on the street before one says they know who he is. His story is also not at all interesting like Catch Me or Wolf. Granted, most people probably didn’t know who Belfort was, but his story was wild and constantly evolving and has a lot of story to tell. Zhong was just some crypto nerd who found one bug and stole a bunch of coin that he never touched, and in the meantime he used his other crypto money to buy friendship and drink. He’s worth a one part netflix doc at most.
Doesn’t matter if he’s a household name. They did it for the BlackBerry guys who no one knew the names of… the Nike guys who signed Jordan who no one knew the names of… and really recently - the GameStop meme stock guys - who I STILL don’t know the names of.
The story is fascinating enough that they wrote an article. And it rings just like one of those kinds of stories Hollywood LOVES to adapt into a visual medium.
I just had to look up all of those movies because I had no idea they’d made them. Those aren’t exactly huge blockbuster live your life like a Rockefeller off the residuals movies. This guy might get a movie made about him but I think you’re overstating it’s potential worth. He might even be able to make a living through speaking engagements and the like but it’s unlikely to make him rich. His heist is more niche interest than many others and I think your personal interest in it might be clouding that.
BlackBerry, household name. Jordan, Nike, household names. GameStop less so, but had tons of news and stories surrounding it, and it’s relatively recent. Having some idea of the subject drives interest, and these all have a journey within their stories. The Zhong story is boring as shit. The only reason headlines capture anyone’s attention is they can say it was a $3 billion dollar heist, when really it was a $600k heist with no interesting tale behind it except he looked through some code and found a bug. Maybe if he continually cashed the coins out and you know, was actually able to throw a billion+ dollars around and was constantly on the run you could make an interesting move. The dude stole the coin, stashed some hardware in his house, then accidentally called the cops on himself. What an amazing adventure, I can’t wait to watch it in theaters.
The gov probably was working in the silk road and wanted their bitcoins back… Very sus investigation especially when no one came to claim the bitcoins…
I don’t see how the IRS had any jurisdiction in this case. Bitcoin is virtual currency which the Federal Reserve does not make. Technically you’d think the IRS could only come after you for physical printed money.
I can understand if they prosecuted him for actual cash they found which he hasn’t paid tax on, but they have no right to take his digital bitcoin.
He needed a better lawyer.
What are you talking about? IRS comes after you for taxes you don’t pay on property and on all sorts of income. If you have a debt written off, that’s taxable income. If you acquire a hard drive worth $3b, that’s taxable income.
Can someone summarise the story. God damn that was a long read and lost interest. What I gathered, Jimmy claimed a robbery of his bitcoins, who then transpired to be the robber?
He stole lots of Bitcoin by hacking silk road. One day someone stole a part of them (20 out of 50000) and he called the police which basically said though luck.
Meanwhile the us government was investigating on the theft and they noticed that he accidentally converted $800 from the stolen $3 billions using his real name.
They showed up at his home really friendly saying they’re investigating about the Bitcoin theft and he opened everything. Unlocked his PC, showed them all the stash, then the liutenant specified which Bitcoin theft was investigating. Officers immediately placed a jigger on the unlocked PC to prevent automatic inactivity lock, guy was arrested.
Unfortunately the guy was one of the og Bitcoin devs in 2009 so he is filthy rich, got one year of prison for the crime of stealing those 3 billion dollars.
The us government said that anyone can ask back the stolen Bitcoin but nobody applied because those were dirty funds coming from the sales of drugs
An odd part of this story is that he hired a PI to figure out who stole Bitcoin from him. The PI figured out who it likely was and told Jimmy, he refused to believe it because he was friends with the thief.
He just wanted to feel loved and have friends but they were all only there for the money and stuff he bought for them.
Thank you 👍
The article you referred to appears to delve into the actions and subsequent consequences faced by Jimmy Zhong, a 28-year-old computer expert from Athens, Georgia. The narrative begins when Zhong reports a theft of a substantial amount of cryptocurrency from his residence, leading to an investigation unveiling one of the most significant cryptocurrency crimes in history ➊.
In 2012, an individual pilfered 50,000 bitcoins from Silk Road, an illicit dark web marketplace. The valuation of these stolen bitcoins soared over time to surpass $3 billion, marking one of the colossal mysteries within the cryptocurrency realm for many years. Nearly a decade post this heist, a grave mistake by the perpetrator enabled the IRS-Criminal Investigation division to resolve the case ➋.
Jimmy Zhong, known for his partying tendencies and also for his exceptional computer skills, was the person behind this massive theft. His downfall was linked to his report about the crypto theft, which was a cover-up, and his robust digital home surveillance system which perhaps played a part in his identification ➌.
Following his conviction in 2022, a raid on his Georgia residence led to the confiscation of approximately 50,676 bitcoins, then valued at over $3.36 billion. Zhong cooperated with the authorities and forfeited the stolen assets ➍.
This tale highlights a significant event within the cryptocurrency community and demonstrates the long-term investigative efforts that can span several years before reaching a resolution.
You want someone to read the article for you and spoon-fed you the salient points?
Sure, I’ll get right on it.
Won’t help but will waste his time on snarky comments, I can tell you enjoy your life 🤣
On the contrary, being snarky isn’t a waste of time at all
petty enough to enjoy it huh, you do you
I was hoping that people would actually read the article before commenting over here, but that’s asking too much 😂
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Ever heard of a typo? You have a couple of errors in your post too. I’m not going to point them out for you though.
This could definitely be a neat movie to watch. Also that PI was a badass. Only one leg and working her ass of on this investigation. Shame they never found the thief that set this all off
