A wallet associated with the Chinese Bitcoin mining operation LuBian transferred nearly $1.3 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) just one day after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) requested the seizure of $15 billion in Bitcoin allegedly stolen from the mining pool.
On Wednesday, blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain flagged this movement, noting that the wallet linked to LuBian transferred 9,757 BTC to a new wallet after being inactive for three years, at the time valued at approximately $1.1 billion.
According to Arkham Intelligence, the wallet subsequently transferred another 2,129 BTC on Wednesday, worth about $238 million, just hours after the first transfer. In total, 11,886 BTC were moved, valued at approximately $1.3 billion at current market prices.
Arkham's investigation on August 3 claimed that LuBian was hacked in 2020, resulting in a loss of 127,426 BTC, which was worth about $3.5 billion at the time. Arkham stated that the platform transferred 11,886 BTC to a recovery wallet, matching the amount of recently transferred Bitcoin associated with LuBian.
The latest wallet activity occurred less than a day after the DOJ unsealed an indictment involving Prince Holding Group, a Cambodia-based company accused of orchestrating a large-scale cryptocurrency fraud scheme.
On Tuesday, U.S. prosecutors filed a forfeiture application for approximately $14.4 billion in assets related to the alleged fraud network led by the group's founder, Chen Zhi.
The DOJ stated that the relevant Bitcoin has been held in custody and will be seized after Zhi is potentially convicted of telecommunications fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges.
According to the DOJ, Zhi and his accomplices laundered their illicit gains to fund a large-scale cryptocurrency mining operation.
This includes the company Warp Data located in Laos, its subsidiary in Texas, and LuBian in China, which became the sixth-largest Bitcoin mining pool in 2020.
The DOJ stated that these companies "generated a significant amount of clean Bitcoin unrelated to criminal proceeds."
If the court approves the forfeiture, the recovered Bitcoin could become one of the largest increases in the U.S. government's digital asset holdings to date.
In March, President Trump signed an executive order to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
At that time, David Sacks, the White House's head of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, stated that the reserve would be funded by Bitcoin owned by the federal government, which had been "seized as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings."
Related: U.S. government may increase cryptocurrency reserves by $14 billion through forfeiture case
Original article: “LuBian-Linked Wallet Moves $1B Bitcoin (BTC) After DOJ Discloses $15B Seizure Case”
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