A former National Crime Agency officer with sticky fingers managed to swipe 50 Bitcoin from right under his colleagues’ noses. Paul Chowles, once trusted to handle seized criminal assets, helped himself to a digital fortune from a “retirement wallet” belonging to Silk Road 2.0 founder Thomas White between May 6-7, 2017. Talk about a retirement plan.
The Bitcoin, worth about $75,000 when stolen, has since skyrocketed to nearly $6 million. Nice timing, Paul. For years, the theft went completely undetected. The volatile nature of cryptocurrency means that price fluctuations can dramatically affect stolen funds’ value. Investigators initially suspected White had somehow accessed his own funds from prison. Nobody thought to look at the guys wearing badges.
Talk about striking crypto gold – Chowles turned $75K into $6M while his colleagues were busy looking the wrong way.
Chowles wasn’t exactly subtle with his method. He used his privileged access to grab the private key, transferred the Bitcoin in two batches, then ran it through “Bitcoin Fog,” a mixing service designed to cover digital tracks. He kept splitting and moving funds, eventually converting crypto to cash through platforms like Cryptopay and Wirex. Classic money laundering. Just less laundromat, more keyboard.
The case broke open when White himself pointed out that only NCA officials could’ve accessed the wallet. Awkward. Merseyside Police reopened the investigation, forcing the NCA to audit internal access. Advanced blockchain analysis eventually traced the complicated transaction path back to Chowles.
Liverpool Crown Court wasn’t impressed, sentencing Chowles to five years and six months behind bars after he admitted to theft, transferring, and concealing criminal property. During a search of his property, investigators discovered incriminating evidence in the form of notebooks and an iPhone containing login credentials to White’s accounts. So much for his career in law enforcement.
The case sent shockwaves through UK agencies, highlighting serious vulnerabilities in how seized digital assets are handled. After the case concluded, authorities managed to recover approximately 470,000 pounds from Chowles’s accounts and assets through confiscation proceedings.
Despite Chowles executing 279 transactions between August 2021 and May 2022 to hide his tracks, blockchain forensics ultimately proved that you can run but you can’t hide.
The irony? The same technology Chowles tried to exploit eventually exposed him. Crypto may be anonymous, but it isn’t invisible. Especially when you’re stealing from the people who are supposed to be the good guys.
