Ex-NCA officer must repay £1.8m after stealing seized Bitcoin

Former National Crime Agency officer Paul Chowles has been ordered to repay £1,810,678.93 after stealing Bitcoin seized in a dark web investigation. The Crown Prosecution Service announced the confiscation order on 30 September 2026, following his conviction and five-and-a-half-year prison sentence in 2025.

Chowles, 44, of Bristol, helped analyse and extract cryptocurrency from devices seized in the investigation into Silk Road 2.0, a marketplace used to sell illegal goods. He then took coins from a wallet held by investigators and tried to conceal their movement.

The order includes Bitcoin recovered from Chowles

The £1.8 million confiscation order includes the value of 30 Bitcoin recovered from Chowles. The CPS says he stole 50 Bitcoin, worth approximately £60,000 at the time of the theft. Bitcoin’s subsequent price increase contributed to the value recovered through today’s proceedings.

For a dated dollar comparison, Coinbase’s spot quote was $83,697.06 per Bitcoin at 19:26 UTC on 30 September. At that quote, 50 Bitcoin has a paper value of about $4.18 million, and 30 Bitcoin about $2.51 million. Those market estimates describe the coin quantities; the court’s order is denominated in pounds.

The theft happened during the Silk Road investigation

Chowles transferred the stolen Bitcoin in two transactions between 6 and 7 May 2017. The CPS’s sentencing account says the coins came from a wallet belonging to Thomas White, who operated Silk Road 2.0 and was jailed in April 2019.

Investigators initially suspected White had accessed the wallet. Merseyside Police later investigated the theft and arrested Chowles in May 2022. Police recovered an iPhone linking him to a cryptocurrency account and notebooks containing credentials connected to White’s accounts.

Chowles pleaded guilty on 23 May 2025 to theft, transferring criminal property and concealing criminal property. Liverpool Crown Court sentenced him on 16 July 2025. The NCA dismissed him on 11 July that year.

The compensation goes towards another confiscation order

The court also made a compensation order for the victim, with those funds going towards the victim’s outstanding confiscation order. The CPS confirmed that arrangement in today’s announcement. White had already faced confiscation proceedings following his own conviction.

The proceedings against Chowles were brought under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The CPS’s proceeds-of-crime guidance explains that confiscation orders recover the financial benefit of offending, while compensation orders address victims’ losses.

Today’s order adds asset recovery to the prison sentence imposed for Chowles’s theft and concealment of seized cryptocurrency.