The US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio said this is believed to be “the largest cryptocurrency seizure in the history of the DEA.”
Officials said the cryptocurrency was worth at least $150 million when it was seized. Under the plea agreement, Singh will forfeit more than 8,100 bitcoins. The price of Bitcoin fluctuates, and the amount seized was more than $340 million on Friday at 2 p.m.
Singh is accused of using dark web sites to sell heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, LSD, MDMA, Xanax, and Tramadol to customers in cities across the United States between 2012 and 2017. Customers paid with Bitcoin, MoneyGram, PayPal or cash, according to NBC. Court records Singh then arranged drug shipments to the United States through mail carriers or parcel delivery services.
Singh was one of eight members of the network indicted in the United States, Orville O. Green, DEA special agent in charge, whose field office covers Ohio and Michigan, said at a news conference on Friday.
He used dark web marketplaces including Silk Road, Alpha Bay, Hansa and Dream Market, according to the plea agreement unsealed Thursday.
Singh, an Indian national living in England, was charged in Ohio in 2018 and arrested the following year. He was not extradited to the United States until last year.
The plea agreement stipulates that Singh will plead guilty to charges of money laundering and conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. He is expected to be sentenced to eight years in prison, although a judge will ultimately have to agree to the terms of the deal. A sentencing date has not been set.
His lawyers, David Thomas and Paul De Petrozzi, declined to comment.
The Silk Road, now closed, became a notorious market for illicit drugs. Earlier this month, judges sentenced a father and son from Maryland — who sold drugs on Silk Road and similar markets under the alias XanaxMan — to prison on money laundering charges. They confiscated nearly 3,000 bitcoins. In another market-related case, the Justice Department announced in 2022 that it had seized $3.36 billion worth of stolen Silk Road cryptocurrency.
Also in 2022, the Department of Justice announced that it had seized more than $3.6 billion worth of Bitcoin that had been stolen from the Bitfinex exchange. A New York couple later pleaded guilty to money laundering.
Devlin Barrett contributed to this report.
