Former NCA officer Paul Chowles ordered to repay $2.4M for Bitcoin theft during Silk Road 2.0 probe

A former officer with the UK’s National Crime Agency has been hit with a confiscation order of £1,810,678.93 (roughly $2.4 million) after stealing 50 Bitcoin during a 2017 investigation into Silk Road 2.0. Paul Chowles, 44, from Bristol, was supposed to be one of the good guys. The Bitcoin he pocketed was worth about £60,000 at the time.

That means the confiscation order values his theft at more than 30 times what those coins were worth when he took them.

How a cop became a crypto criminal

Chowles committed the theft in May 2017 while working as part of the NCA’s investigation into Silk Road 2.0, the successor to the original dark web marketplace where drugs, weapons, and other illicit goods changed hands. The NCA had seized approximately 97 BTC as part of the probe, and Chowles helped himself to 50 of them.

Chowles ran the stolen Bitcoin through mixing services, including Bitcoin Fog, a tumbler designed to obscure transaction trails by pooling and redistributing coins. He then converted portions of the crypto into fiat currency using services like Cryptopay and Wirex debit cards.

Over time, he spent roughly £613,000 on personal expenses.

His undoing came from an unlikely source: the very criminal he was supposed to be investigating. Thomas White, the operator of Silk Road 2.0, reported the missing coins after his release from prison.

Merseyside Police took over the investigation, enlisting blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis to trace the funds. Despite the mixing services and multiple conversion points, the on-chain trail led back to Chowles. He was arrested in May 2022.

Guilty plea and sentencing

In May 2025, Chowles pleaded guilty to one count of theft and two counts of money laundering. On July 16, 2025, he was sentenced to five and a half years in prison.

The confiscation order, issued on September 30, 2026, reflects the current value of roughly 30 BTC that investigators managed to recover from Chowles. The remaining 20 BTC were deemed spent, already converted and dispersed through his years of personal expenditure before he was caught.

When Chowles stole 50 BTC in 2017, the total haul was worth around £60,000, or approximately $80,000. The confiscation order of £1,810,678.93 shows just how dramatically Bitcoin’s price has moved since then. Prosecutors valued the recovery based on the appreciated worth of the assets, not their value at the time of theft.

What blockchain forensics revealed

Bitcoin Fog’s alleged operator, Roman Sterlingov, was convicted in the US in 2024. The service’s reputation as a reliable way to obscure transaction history has been systematically dismantled by law enforcement agencies armed with modern forensic tools.

For Chowles, the combination of on-chain analysis and the fiat off-ramps he used — Cryptopay and Wirex both comply with know-your-customer requirements — created a paper trail that was ultimately impossible to hide from.

Implications for digital asset security in law enforcement

Chowles was able to walk away with more than half of the seized Bitcoin from a high-profile investigation without anyone noticing for five years. The case also raises questions about insider threats more broadly. Law enforcement officers with access to seized crypto wallets and private keys have unique opportunities for theft that traditional asset seizures don’t present.

Disclosure: This article was edited by John Chen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.