Overview

• The civil complaint, filed July 24, requests permanent transfer of 20.2891382 BTC now held in a government-controlled wallet and valued at over $2.3 million.
• FBI Dallas agents seized approximately 20.2 BTC on April 15 from a wallet tied to a Chaos operator known only as “Hors.”
• Authorities accessed the funds using a recovery seed phrase associated with the Electrum wallet platform.
• The DOJ alleges the Bitcoin represents proceeds of money laundering and extortion from Chaos’s cross-platform ransomware attacks.
• The case underscores the department’s use of blockchain tracing and civil asset forfeiture to disrupt ransomware-as-a-service operations and recover illicit proceeds.