A former officer with the U.K. National Crime Agency (NCA) has been ordered to repay approximately $2.38 million (£1.8 million) for stealing 50 bitcoin that had been seized during an investigation into the Silk Road 2.0 dark-web marketplace.
Paul Chowles, 44, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison in July 2025 after pleading guilty to theft, transferring criminal property, and concealing criminal property. He was formally dismissed from the agency on July 11, 2025.
Dark Web Theft and Asset Laundering
As part of the law enforcement team investigating Silk Road 2.0, Chowles was tasked with analyzing and extracting cryptocurrency from seized digital devices. Exploiting his position, he secretly transferred 50 bitcoins from a confiscated law enforcement wallet. When the theft occurred in 2017, the stolen cryptocurrency was valued at approximately $79,250.
Chowles attempted to hide the digital trail by routing the funds through a series of cryptocurrency transactions. Financial investigators from Merseyside Police and the North West Regional Asset Recovery Team traced the assets and recovered 30 of the 50 stolen bitcoins.
Due to the appreciation of bitcoin's price over time and his criminal benefit, the final confiscation sum reached nearly $2.4 million. A compensation order was also issued to direct recovered funds toward satisfying the outstanding confiscation order of the victim in the original case.
Prosecution Response
Luke Clements, a specialist prosecutor in the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) Proceeds of Crime Division, condemned the breach of trust. He emphasized that the confiscation orders demonstrate that law enforcement will relentlessly pursue offenders' assets and strip them of criminal profits.
The CPS Proceeds of Crime Division reported that over the past five years, it has recovered more than $700 million through confiscation orders, returning over $135 million directly to victims as compensation.
