The US Justice Department announced charges on Monday against two former federal agents accused of stealing the digital currency bitcoin during the investigation of the underground drug marketplace Silk Road.
Carl Force, a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent, and Shaun Bridges, a special agent with the Secret Service, were charged in a criminal complaint filed in San Francisco federal court with offenses including wire fraud and money laundering.
Silk Road was an underground website where people bought drugs and other illicit goods using bitcoin digital currency. By the time authorities shut it down in October 2013, Silk Road had generated around $200 million in sales, prosecutors said.
Force, 46, and Bridges, 32, belonged to a Baltimore-based federal task force investigating the Silk Road. Force had a prominent role in the probe, authorities said, as he was the lead undercover agent in communication with Ulbricht.
Using those aliases, Force extorted $250,000 from Ulbricht and later offered to sell him information about the government's investigation for $100,000, the complaint said.
Authorities said Bridges, 32, meanwhile diverted to his personal account over $800,000 worth of bitcoin that he controlled during the Silk Road investigation.
Joshua Dratel, Ulbricht's lawyer, in a statement on Monday said that prosecutors only revealed information about the "monumental scandal" five weeks before trial after keeping the investigation secret for nine months.
Steven Levin, a lawyer for Bridges, said he maintains his innocence. Ivan Bates, Force's attorney, did not respond to a request for comment.
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