China accuses the United States of being behind the theft of $13 billion in Bitcoin Cryptocurrencies

127,272 Bitcoins stolen from mining pool LoobianWhich occurred in December 2020, and is among the largest cryptocurrency thefts in history. According to China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center, the attack was likely a “nation-wide hacking operation” led by the United States. The agency said the late, clandestine movement of stolen bitcoins indicates government actions, not common criminal behavior..

The report, published last week, links bitcoins stolen from LuBian, once one of the world’s largest bitcoin mining operations, to tokens seized by the US government. According to the United States, these assets were linked to Chen Qi, the head of the Cambodian Prince Group. The United States accused Chen last October of conspiring to commit wire fraud and running a money laundering scheme.

In the indictment filed on October 8 in New York, the United States alleged that Chen and his accomplices laundered illicit proceeds by using them to finance large-scale cryptocurrency mining operations, including Lopian. The document states that addresses linked to LuBian “received large amounts of cryptocurrencies from sources unrelated to the new mining.”

Federal prosecutors handling Chen’s case declined to comment on how or when they gained control of bitcoin.. The US Department of Justice has filed a civil suit for the seizure of 127,271 bitcoins, making it the largest forfeiture action ever taken by the US government.

John Marzoli, a spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Joseph Nocella, who was in charge of Chen’s case and the bitcoin seizure, also declined to comment to Bloomberg.

“The US government may have used hacking techniques as early as 2020 to steal 127,000 bitcoins owned by Chen Qi,” the Chinese report stated. “This is a classic ‘bad guy on bad guy’ operation, organized by a nationwide hacking organization.”

The Chinese government has been increasingly vocal in its accusations of US-led hacking campaigns. Earlier this year, China claimed that the United States exploited a vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange servers to attack Chinese companies. Last month, Beijing said it had “conclusive evidence” of a US cyberattack on China’s National Meteorological Service.. However, Chinese accusations tend to be broad and lack the criminal details that typically accompany U.S. accusations against foreign adversaries.

Chen’s lawyer this week filed a letter with a US court asking for more time to track down the bitcoins stolen from LuBian. In the document, attorney Matthew L. Schwartz also called the government’s allegations against Chen “dangerously misleading.” Prosecutors said when the indictment was made public last month that Chen was not in US custody.

“As we explained in our court filing, we are working closely with cryptocurrency experts to trace bitcoins that were seized by the government more than a year ago and stolen in 2020,” Schwartz, president of Boies Schiller Flexner and an attorney for Chen and the Prince Group, said in a note to Bloomberg.