China accuses US of involvement in $13 billion worth of Bitcoin theft Cryptocurrency

127,272 Bitcoins stolen from mining pool rubianis one of the largest cryptocurrency heists in history, which occurred in December 2020. China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center said the attack was likely a “state-level hacking operation” led by the United States. The agency said the careful and slow movement of stolen bitcoins suggested government action rather than common criminal activity..

The report, released last week, links bitcoins stolen from LuBian, once one of the world’s largest bitcoin mining operations, to tokens seized by the U.S. government. According to the US, these assets were linked to Cheng Zhi, the president of Cambodian conglomerate Prince Group. Chen was indicted by the United States in October on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and operating a money laundering scheme.

In an indictment filed in New York on October 8, the United States alleged that Chen and his accomplices laundered illegal proceeds by using them to finance large-scale cryptocurrency mining operations, including LuBian. The document states that addresses associated with LuBian “received large amounts of cryptocurrencies from sources unrelated to new mining.”

Federal prosecutors handling Chen’s case declined to comment on when or how he gained control of Bitcoin.. The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a civil lawsuit in connection with the seizure of 127,271 Bitcoins, making it the largest seizure ever undertaken by the U.S. government.

John Marzulli, a spokesman for Joseph Nocera, the Brooklyn district attorney who handled Chen’s case and the Bitcoin seizure, also declined to comment to Bloomberg.

“The U.S. government may have used hacking techniques to steal 127,000 Bitcoins belonging to Mr. Chen Zhi in early 2020,” the Chinese report said. “This is a classic ‘bad guy against bad guy’ operation orchestrated by a national hacker organization.”

The Chinese government has increasingly criticized the US-led hacking campaign. Earlier this year, China claimed that the United States exploited a flaw in Microsoft Exchange servers to attack Chinese companies. Last month, the Chinese government said it had “irrefutable evidence” of a U.S. cyberattack on China’s National Meteorological Administration.. But China’s accusations tend to be broad-based and lack the forensic detail that typically accompanies U.S. charges against foreign enemies.

Mr. Chen’s lawyers filed a letter in a U.S. court this week asking for more time to trace the bitcoins stolen by Mr. Rubian. Attorney Matthew L. Schwartz also said in a written statement that the government’s allegations against Mr. Chen are “grossly misguided.” When the indictment was announced last month, prosecutors said Chen was not in U.S. custody.

“As we explained in our court filing, we are working closely with crypto experts to track the Bitcoin that the government seized more than a year ago and was stolen in 2020,” Schwartz, president of Boies Schiller Flexner and an attorney with Chen and Prince Group, said in a note to Bloomberg.