Former NCA officer ordered to repay £1.8m over stolen Bitcoin
BRISTOL — A former National Crime Agency officer must repay £1.8m after stealing Bitcoin he had helped secure during a criminal investigation. Paul Chowles, 44,
BRISTOL — A former National Crime Agency officer must repay £1.8m after stealing Bitcoin he had helped secure during a criminal investigation. Paul Chowles, 44, from Bristol, took cryptocurrency recovered from a case linked to dark web trading and moved it into his own accounts.
The case matters because the value of the coins surged far beyond what they were worth when they disappeared. The Crown Prosecution Service said the confiscation order covers the value of 30 Bitcoin recovered from Chowles, after the haul rose from £36,000 to more than £1.8m.
How the Bitcoin was taken
Chowles was part of an NCA team examining digital devices seized during an investigation into criminals selling illegal goods on the dark web. While working on the case, he took part in the analysis and extraction of cryptocurrency from those devices.
He later transferred about half of the Bitcoin seized from a drug trafficker into his own accounts, according to the court case. The stolen coins were linked to the investigation that eventually led to Thomas White being jailed in 2019 for 64 months after he was found to have sold illegal goods.
What the court decided
Chowles was jailed for five and a half years at Liverpool Crown Court last year after pleading guilty to theft and money laundering. The confiscation order followed that conviction and targets the value of the Bitcoin recovered from him.
The order underlines how quickly cryptocurrency can change the financial stakes in criminal cases. A sum that started at £36,000 became worth more than £1.8m, turning a theft from an investigation file into a much larger recovery fight for prosecutors.
The source material does not say when the confiscation order was made, only that the CPS secured it earlier. It also says the 30 recovered Bitcoin represent the value now being pursued from Chowles, while the original amount stolen was about half of the seized Bitcoin.
For investigators, the case is an awkward reminder of the risks inside complex financial crime work. Chowles had been inside the machinery of the investigation, handling the very assets he later misappropriated. The CPS said the order reflects the value of the recovered coins, not the original price at the time of the theft.
Source: bbc.co.uk
