$3.4B in stolen Bitcoin hidden in Cheetos tin and underground safe

I'm kind of confused. 10 years ago a guy stole from an illegal underground operation and today, years later after it was shutdown, someone form the government finally found them and brought them to justice?

Who reported the crime and who's justice is the government doing this for? "Ring Ring" ... "Ross, you got a call from the government" ... "Hello Mr. Ulbricht, we'd like to let you know that we finally caught the thief that stole from you, justice has been served, I hope this brings you some peace as you carry on your life sentence."

Like...WHAT?! Or did the government just want to seize the money? Maybe I'm missing context on who this guy was, but the article just makes it sound like some guy who managed to scam an illegal marketplace. Like it seems like such a waste of time to track such a random thing down, unless they were working on punishing every person who ever interacted with that site?

i loled at this. finally a use case for Cheetoes tins

A man who stored billions of dollars worth of stolen crypto-currency in an underground safe — and a Cheetos popcorn tin — was sentenced Friday to a year and a day in prison.

Yup, to trigger that 15% good time.

Its founder, Ross Ulbricht, was sentenced in 2015 to life in prison without the possibility of parole after he was convicted of drug trafficking, money laundering, and hacking, among other charges.

He should have just hacked his own exchange.

"Back in 2012, James Zhong committed wire fraud by stealing 50,000 Bitcoin from Silk Road, and for the next 10 years, he managed to conceal what he had done and how he obtained his fortune," US Attorney Damian Williams said in the statement.

As discussed earlier, the statute of limitations did not help, which is only 5 years for wire fraud. I guess the 'concealing aspect' is why it did not apply. perhaps had he just sat on the coins and done nothing else, he would have been clear.

I thought it was the mainboard of a usb drive hidden on the bottom of a tin buried in a bunch of towels in their bathroom closet. I read something like that last year in a different article.

Article mentioned Ross Ulbricht and that reminded me of that ridiculous life sentence.

https://freeross.org/

i love stories like these from back in the day when people would send 10,000 BTC around as a joke. Sure, 3.4B, makes sense.