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An NCA officer has been sentenced to jail for stealing £4.4m worth of bitcoin that was seized during a joint operation with the FBI. The criminal he was investigating alerted the police about the missing funds, leading to the discovery of the theft. Paul Chowles managed to evade detection for five years by laundering the money on the dark web and spending most of it on day-to-day expenses amounting to £613,000.
The 42-year-old investigator had been working on the case of Thomas White from Liverpool, who operated an online black market for illegal drugs named Silk Road 2.0. White, who was under investigation, noticed that 50 bitcoin out of the 97 he owned had gone missing and informed the police that someone within the NCA must have taken it, as they had access to his cryptocurrency wallet’s private keys.
Following White’s report, Merseyside police, responsible for monitoring White after his release in early 2022, discussed the theft with the NCA. It was revealed that Chowles had stolen the money in May 2017 and had been using it for the past five years on purchases from supermarkets, hardware stores, fuel, and meals. The initial value of the stolen bitcoin was approximately £60,000 but had significantly increased over time.
Investigators recovered an iPhone linking Chowles to the bitcoin transfer account and found notebooks in his office containing details of White’s cryptocurrency accounts. The Crown Prosecution Service’s specialist prosecutor, Alex Johnson, described Chowles as technically competent and familiar with the dark web and cryptocurrencies. Chowles attempted to cover his tracks by using mixing services to hide the money’s trail after the theft.
DCI John Black from Merseyside police’s intelligence bureau emphasized that Chowles abused his position to enrich himself through criminal activities. Chowles, residing in Bristol, pleaded guilty to theft, transferring criminal property, and concealing criminal property and was sentenced to five and a half years in Liverpool crown court
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