The 144,336 bitcoin found on Silk Road boss Ross Ulbricht’s laptop top the list. The government sold them for about $48 million, and today they would be worth about $12 billion. Also on the list: a $15 billion scam empire, the Bitfinex hack linked to a would-be rapper, and a fortune hidden in a popcorn tin.
Pictured: SLICE Who’s documentary on Ross Ulbricht and Silk Road. The 144,336 BTC seized from his laptop rank #1.
Rank
Case
Who
Type of crime
Bitcoin seized
Worth today (US$ millions)
Year announced
Where the coins stand
1
Silk Road: Ross Ulbricht’s laptop
Ross Ulbricht
Darknet market
144,336
12,078
2017
Sold by the US Marshals
2
Prince Group scam compounds
Chen Zhi
Scam
127,271
10,650
2025
In US custody, case pending
3
2016 Bitfinex hack
Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan
Hack or theft
94,000+
7,866
2022
Forfeited, claims still in court
4
Silk Road hacker “Individual X”
Never named
Hack or theft
69,370
5,805
2020
Forfeited
5
Silk Road theft (the popcorn tin)
James Zhong
Hack or theft
51,680
4,325
2022
Forfeited
6
Silk Road server
Silk Road itself
Darknet market
29,655
2,482
2014
Forfeited
7
Helix bitcoin mixer
Larry Harmon
Money laundering
4,400+
368
2021
Forfeited
8
“XANAXMAN” darknet drug dealer
Ryan and Joseph Farace
Drug dealing
2,934
246
2024
Forfeited
9
Empire Market
Thomas Pavey and Raheim Hamilton
Darknet market
2,814
235
2026
Agreed to forfeit
10
Bitcoin Fog mixer
Roman Sterlingov
Money laundering
1,345
113
2024
Forfeited
No matching rows.
How this list works. Cases are ranked by the number of bitcoin the US Justice Department says were seized, or that a court ordered or a defendant agreed to forfeit, in a federal case. Amounts are rounded to whole coins, and “+” means the department said “more than”. “Worth today” prices every row at $83,679, bitcoin’s closing price on October 11, 2026, so it shows what the coins would be worth now, not what the government got for them.[2] Together the ten cases add up to about 528,000 BTC, roughly $44 billion at that price. Seized coins are in government custody; forfeited coins have been handed to the government for good by a court order. Cases where the department gave no bitcoin count (such as AlphaBay) aren’t ranked, and neither are seizures by other countries’ police. Since March 2025, bitcoin that the US government finally forfeits goes into a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and “shall not be sold”. Coins sold before then, like most of Silk Road’s, aren’t in it.[18]Where the data comes from: the cases and amounts are from Bittery’s ranking of the largest bitcoin seizures by the US government (data as of October 9, 2026), which traces each one to Justice Department announcements and court filings, linked again below.[1]
The Top 10
#1
Silk Road: Ross Ulbricht’s laptop — 144,336 BTC
Silk Road was the first big darknet market, a website where drugs were bought and sold for bitcoin. When the FBI shut it down in 2013, agents found 144,336 bitcoin on the laptop of its founder, Ross Ulbricht. The US Marshals later auctioned the coins, and in 2017 prosecutors announced the forfeiture of the $48.2 million they raised, about $334 a coin.[3] Ulbricht was serving a life sentence when President Trump pardoned him on January 21, 2025.[4]
#2
Prince Group scam compounds — 127,271 BTC
In October 2025 US prosecutors went after about 127,271 bitcoin, then worth roughly $15 billion, that they say came from scams run out of forced-labor compounds in Cambodia by the Prince Group. The company’s chairman, Chen Zhi, was indicted the same day, and the Justice Department called it the largest forfeiture action in its history.[5] Chen was arrested in Cambodia in January 2026 and sent to China.[6] The coins sit in US custody while the case is fought in court.
#3
The 2016 Bitfinex hack — 94,000+ BTC
In 2016 a hacker stole 119,754 bitcoin from the Bitfinex exchange. In February 2022 federal agents arrested a New York couple, Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, and seized more than 94,000 of the stolen coins, at the time the department’s largest financial seizure ever.[7] Morgan, who rapped online as “Razzlekhan”, got 18 months in prison, and Lichtenstein, who admitted the hack, got five years.[8] The coins have been forfeited, but who gets them back is still being argued in court.[9]
#4
Silk Road hacker “Individual X” — 69,370 BTC
Years after Silk Road closed, IRS investigators went back through its old transactions with a blockchain-analysis firm and found a wallet holding coins an unnamed hacker had stolen from the site. In November 2020 the government took the 69,370 bitcoin in it, then worth over $1 billion. “Individual X” agreed to hand them over and has never been publicly named.[10]
#5
The Silk Road popcorn tin — 51,680 BTC
In 2012 James Zhong tricked Silk Road’s withdrawal system into paying out far more bitcoin than he had deposited. When agents searched his Georgia home in November 2021, they found about 50,491 bitcoin in an underground floor safe and on a single-board computer hidden under blankets in a popcorn tin.[11] With the coins he handed over later, the final forfeiture came to 51,680 bitcoin. He was sentenced in April 2023.[12]
#6
The Silk Road server — 29,655 BTC
The first Silk Road haul came from the site itself. When the FBI took Silk Road offline in October 2013, it seized about 29,655 bitcoin held on the marketplace’s own server. In January 2014 prosecutors announced their forfeiture, billed at the time as the largest ever forfeiture of bitcoins.[13]
#7
Helix bitcoin mixer — 4,400+ BTC
Larry Harmon ran Helix, a “mixer” that pooled customers’ bitcoin and paid it back out from different addresses to hide where it came from, often for darknet buyers. Helix moved about 354,468 bitcoin between 2014 and 2017. When Harmon pleaded guilty in 2021, he agreed to forfeit more than 4,400 bitcoin.[14] His brother later admitted stealing more than 712 bitcoin from a device the government had seized in the case.[14]
#8
“XANAXMAN” — 2,934 BTC
Between 2013 and 2017, Maryland man Ryan Farace sold more than 920,000 counterfeit Xanax pills on darknet markets under the name “XANAXMAN”, and was sentenced to 57 months in prison.[15] Years later his father, Joseph, tried to move the bitcoin profits. Agents seized 2,874.9 bitcoin in February 2021 and 58.7 more that May, and father and son were both sentenced in January 2024.[15]
#9
Empire Market — 2,814 BTC
Empire Market was one of the largest darknet markets of its time, selling drugs, stolen data and counterfeit money until it went offline in 2020. Its co-creators, Thomas Pavey and Raheim Hamilton, agreed to forfeit 2,814 bitcoin between them. On October 7, 2026, Hamilton was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison, the newest case on this list.[16]
#10
Bitcoin Fog mixer — 1,345 BTC
Bitcoin Fog was the longest-running bitcoin mixer, handling more than 1.2 million bitcoin, then worth about $400 million, over roughly a decade. Its operator, Roman Sterlingov, was convicted by a jury in March 2024 and sentenced in November 2024 to 12 years and 6 months in prison. He was also ordered to forfeit the Bitcoin Fog wallet, about 1,345 bitcoin.[17]
