Corrupt agent who investigated Silk Road is suspected of another $700k heist

Shaun Bridges tried to quietly change his name to "Calogero Esposito."

Joe Mullin – Jul 3, 2016 5:15 PM | 74

Shaun Bridges was captured by CCTV security cameras, leaving a Secret Service field office with a large bag. The government said the bag may have contained hard drives with keys needed to access his Bitstamp wallet. Credit: US Attorney's Office San Francisco

Access not denied

In November 2014, the US Attorney in Maryland seized 1606 bitcoins, worth about $600,000 (£400,000) at the time, from various accounts at a company called Bitstamp. Bridges was the affiant on the warrant, and the funds were put into a Bitcoin wallet he created. Later, some of the account owners "disputed the legality of the warrant," according to an affidavit (PDF) signed by by IRS Special Agent Tigran Gambaryan, who headed up the Northern California-based investigation of Bridges' crimes. In September 2015, a federal court in Maryland ordered the US Secret Service to return $30,616 worth of bitcoins to the affected Bitstamp clients.

When the Secret Service accessed the wallet, however, the the bitcoins were gone. They'd been moved on July 28, after Bridges signed his guilty plea.

The affidavit doesn't outright state that Bridges took the money, but it looks mighty suspicious. It's possible that other employees had access, but "at present the only individual that is conclusively known to have access was Bridges." Secret Service had never revoked Bridges' access to the wallet, even after he had been arrested and the agents were warned to do so. About a dozen other Secret Service employees were interviewed and all reported they did not have access to the wallet.

The stolen money was moved into an account at BTC-e associated with the e-mail account "branstein.gustaf@outlook.com." BTC-e is an unregistered foreign Bitcoin exchange that "operates without appropriate anti-money laundering" policies, according to the government. BTC-e ultimately did provide some records, but the logs showed that the money was accessed through Tor and run through a Bitcoin tumbler. When he was a federal agent, Bridges was a specialist in tumbler and the user of Tor.

The affidavit also recounts how Bridges petitioned a Maryland state court to change his name from "Shaun Wesley Bridges" to "Calogero Esposito." (Bridges' wife's last name is Esposito). Bridges, who sought to have the name change sealed from the public record, neglected to mention that he had been arrested and was scheduled to plead guilty to money-laundering charges. His petition for a name change was denied, but he re-petitioned two more times.

Bridges' PayPal account also showed that he had attempted to order a birth certificate from a company that claims to provide German documents.

The affidavit also asks for a warrant to obtain records from Microsoft related to the "branstein.gustaf@outlook.com" address, saying there's probable cause the account was related to the theft.

While the documents lay out what the government was thinking in late January, there's no indication of where the investigation proceeded after that. Bridges has begun serving his original sentence at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. It isn't clear if or when additional charges will be filed against him.