China’s cybersecurity agency has accused the US government of stealing around $13 billion worth of Bitcoin, in what it says is the latest attempt to pin a major cyberattack on Washington.
The allegations involve the theft of 127,272 Bitcoin tokens from the LuBian mining pool in December 2020, considered one of the largest cryptocurrency heists in history.
According to China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CNCERT), the hack is believed to be a “state-level” hacking operation led by the United States.
In a report published last week, Chinese authorities claimed that the movement of the stolen Bitcoins was carried out quietly and in a delayed manner, a pattern they say is consistent with a government-level operation, not a typical cybercrime.
The report also linked Bitcoin stolen from LuBian, one of the world’s largest Bitcoin miners at the time, to a number of tokens that were later seized by the US government.
The US government had previously said that the seized tokens were linked to Chen Zhi, chairman of the Cambodian Prince Group.
The US Department of Justice subsequently filed a civil forfeiture complaint to seize 127,271 Bitcoins, making it one of the largest digital asset forfeitures in the country’s history.
Federal prosecutors involved in Chen’s case, however, have not provided any explanation as to how the government gained control of the Bitcoins.
