Czech police seize $345,000 property in connection with bitcoin hack

Czech police have seized a luxury property, reportedly worth around $345,000, bought with bitcoin by Tomáš Jiřikovský and his partner Eva Bartošová, who were earlier linked to the hack of drug bazaar Sheep Marketplace.

Sheep Marketplace shut its operations in December 2013, subsequent to the claims that hackers had disappeared with nearly $5.3m in bitcoin. Customers who tracked the stolen funds raised suspicions that the hack was an inside job.

A payment of around $35,000 from bitcoin exchange Bitstamp to Bartošová was flagged by the Ministry of Finance's Financial Analytical Unit (FAU), after Bartošová was not able to account for the funds' origin, according to reports. Moreover, payments to a lawyer and a realtor were also tracked reportedly.

A report published by FAU, noted payments to Bitstamp Ltd, which it refers to as 'BL', "During the inspection of a bank we caught an international payment on behalf of a newly opened bank account under the name of 'EB', which was sent by a certain company 'BL', that runs a virtual currency exchange in the European Union. During the investigation we found that the payment was intended for person 'TJ', a partner of 'EB'."

The report added, "We found that the name 'TJ' is mentioned in the context of theft of digital currency from the market 'SM'. In the investigation we detected more payments in hundreds of thousands and millions of Czech crowns that went to the accounts of 'EB' and 'TJ', from the company 'BL', to buy a property and other things."

The analytical unit confirmed that a complaint for suspected money laundering had been filed under section 216 of the criminal code.