More than $3 billion was stolen and lost by Jimmy Zhong, whose secret life was exposed.

• In 2012, a thief stole 50,000 bitcoin from the Silk Road, a notorious illegal marketplace on the dark web. The value of the stolen bitcoin soared to over $3 billion over time, making it one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in the realm of cryptocurrency.
• Over a decade since the 2012 hack, the thief made a crucial error that led the IRS-CI to solve the case.
• Investigators linked the thief to the crypto heist through never-before-seen footage obtained by CNBC.

The University of Georgia is located in Athens, Georgia, where the police are accustomed to dealing with typical college town crimes such as break-ins, bar fights, and general rowdiness.

The 911 call on March 13, 2019, was unique for the Athens-Clarke County Police Department.

A 28-year-old local party boy named Jimmy Zhong, who graduated from Georgia and frequented Athens' drinking establishments, was on the phone. Unlike other town rowdies, Zhong was a computer expert who had an unusually robust digital home surveillance system.

Zhong was distressed after reporting a crime involving the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in crypto currency from his home.

According to a recording obtained by CNBC, Zhong informed the dispatcher that he was experiencing a panic attack.

Zhong rejected the dispatcher's proposal for an ambulance and started explaining the situation. He stated, "I am an investor in , which is an online platform."

The resolution of a nearly decade-long manhunt and the solution of one of the biggest crimes of the crypto era would result in the largest seizure of cryptocurrency from an individual in the history of the Department of Justice.

The winter evening emergency call made by Zhong led investigators on a digital journey that uncovered a shocking truth about the origins of cryptocurrencies and the shadowy realm of hackers and coders who created them. In this world, heroes and villains often switched roles and could even be the same individuals.

None of it would go at all the way Zhong wanted.

Despite the 911 call, no suspect was identified in the theft from Zhong's house. The Athens police were dealing with their first crypto case and were unfamiliar with the murky underworld, which hindered their progress in the case.

Robin Martinelli, owner and operator of Martinelli Investigations in Loganville, Georgia, was turned to by Zhong for assistance.

Martinelli, a former sheriff's deputy turned PI, was not an expert in crypto. She focused on process serving, cheating spouses, and custody investigations, which helped her firm appear on an episode of "The Montel Williams Show."

Recently, Martinelli underwent surgery to remove one leg and now conducts surveillance operations with the aid of a prosthetic.

Still, she was motivated to solve Zhong’s case.

Martinelli stated in an interview for the documentary "Crypto 911: Exposing a Bitcoin Billionaire" that if you wake up and don't put two feet on the ground, but still have to run a company, you must get out there and kick ass.

Martinelli first examined Zhong's extensive surveillance footage of his home, and upon reviewing the footage from the night of the crime, he noticed a thin male figure.

Martinelli stated, "We could tell they had a gray hood on, almost like a black ski mask."

Zhong's house was familiar to the suspect, leading Martinelli to suspect that he was a friend or someone who had heard Zhong brag about his bitcoin stash. From the video, Martinelli was able to determine the suspect's height and hand size.

She commenced her investigation by monitoring Zhong's friends, tracking their movements to their homes and bars on Broad Street and College Avenue. She utilized trackers on vehicles, social media, and conducted thorough background checks.

Martinelli formed a low opinion of Zhong's bar friends as she watched them come and go, describing them as "very, very casual, plastic, not really caring, and maybe using Jimmy a little bit."

Zhong was resistant to Martinelli's theories, especially when they centered on his circle of friends. Eventually, Martinelli identified a specific suspect whom she believed had stolen 150 bitcoins from Jimmy, worth nearly $600,000 at the time.

Zhong didn’t want to hear it, she said.

Martinelli explained that Zhong was upset when he mentioned someone had to have known where the cash was, and she understood why he was hurt by the idea of someone close to him betraying him.

Jimmy desired affection," she stated. "Jimmy sought companionship.

As Martinelli grew more distant from her friend group, she found herself drawn to her client, whom she saw as an outsider seeking companionship.

“Jimmy was a good guy,” she said.

A lot of people around Athens felt similarly about him.

Before the theft, Zhong was known for his lavish spending habits. He would often buy rounds of expensive drinks for the entire bar, with hundreds of dollars disappearing in a matter of seconds.

Despite residing in a modest off-campus bungalow near student housing and the downtown college bar scene, he frequently stayed at luxurious hotels such as the Ritz Carlton, the Plaza, and the Waldorf Astoria, according to court documents reviewed by CNBC. He was known to frequent high-end stores such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Jimmy Choo. He drove expensive cars, including a Rolls Royce. He also owned a second home, a lake house with a dock in Gainesville, Georgia, just a short drive from Athens. The lake house was equipped with jet skis, boats, a stripper pole, and an abundance of liquor.

His parties were epic.

Zhong was living his best life without any visible source of income. Despite not having a job, he claimed to have made a fortune through bitcoin mining in the early days of the technology. Zhong had been involved in crypto since 2009, the year bitcoin was invented by the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto and a group of developers.

Whatever Zhong was doing, he was generating a lot of money and was willing to spend it lavishly.

In 2018, when his Georgia Bulldogs football team played in the Rose Bowl, Zhong organized a trip with a few friends to Los Angeles.

Stefana Masic, a Georgia alum and one of the friends on the trip, told CNBC that it really felt like with Jimmy, there were no limits.

Zhong not only paid for all the tickets and rented a private jet for the cross-country flight, but also gave each friend up to $10,000 for a shopping spree in Beverly Hills on Rodeo Drive. They used the money to buy outfits, accessories, and baubles to wear in the city.

I had never flown private before or stayed in such a luxurious hotel. It was exciting because I got to experience many things I typically wouldn't.

In LA, Zhong cheered on his team while unaware that IRS Criminal Investigation agents, based in the same city, were meticulously working to solve a decades-old crime.

According to court documents reviewed by CNBC, the 2012 hack that captured the attention of investigators was the theft of 50,000 bitcoins from Silk Road, an early crypto marketplace on the dark web. This site facilitated the exchange of illicit materials such as drugs, guns, pornography, and other secret desires among anonymous buyers and sellers.

The value of the stolen bitcoin by the Silk Road hacker has surpassed $3 billion, according to court documents. Although investigators can trace the location of the currency on the blockchain, they cannot identify the new owner of the funds. Thus, they have been monitoring the hacker's transactions for years, extracting some funds, and sending them through crypto mixers to conceal the source of the money.

A blockchain analytics company, Chainalysis, discovered that the hacker who stole Silk Road assets made a small error. He mistakenly transferred approximately $800 to a crypto exchange that adheres to established banking regulations, including know your customer procedures, which require account holders to provide their real names and addresses.

In September 2019, six months after Zhong's 911 call to the local police, the account was registered in Zhong's name.

To confirm that Zhong was the hacker, it was necessary to verify the evidence.

According to sources at both the IRS and the Athens-Clarke County Police Department, the IRS contacted the police department for assistance, and at the time, the police investigation into Zhong's crime report was stagnant.

Lt. Jody Thompson, head of the local property and financial crimes unit, received a call from an IRS agent who wanted to speak with her about a case involving Jimmy.

Thompson collaborated with IRS-CI special agent Trevor McAleenan and Shaun MaGruder, CEO of BlockTrace, a cyber intelligence company that works with the IRS as an embedded contractor and specializes in untangling complex blockchain transactions.

The three investigators collaborated on a plan to deceive Zhong, claiming they were investigating the theft of his bitcoin worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

They were investigating Zhong for a crime they believed he had committed, which now had proceeds worth billions of dollars.

According to CNBC's exclusive body camera footage, when three men knocked on the door of his lake home in Gainesville, Zhong opened it eagerly, thinking that the police officer and the two experts were there to assist him with his crypto cold case.

Zhong invited the trio out for a party if they solved the problem for him, as seen in the body camera footage.

The video reveals the officers showering praise on Zhong. They praised his front door as "beautiful," his speakers as "crazy," and his dog, Chad. They requested a tour of his house. The body camera footage shows the men examining the stone floors, peering into closets, and inspecting the wood paneling. Unbeknownst to Zhong, they were searching for hidden compartments.

In his basement, Zhong had investigators equipped with a full bar and a stripper pole.

“Is this your workout?” McAleenan asked Zhong.

“Nope, that’s for girls,” Zhong replied.

Zhong's security system was thoroughly examined by the body camera footage, and he was asked to explain its features and capabilities. Additionally, Zhong demonstrated a metal case that he claimed to have used to store $1 million in cash in order to impress a woman.

“Did it work?” asked Lt. Thompson.

“Nope,” Zhong said.

“It never does,” Thompson replied.

Zhong had a flamethrower and an AR-15 rifle on the premises, which the law enforcement officers discovered.

MaGruder said Zhong’s level of sophistication was apparent.

MaGruder remarked, "I've never seen anyone navigate a keyboard like he did. He didn't need a mouse because he was familiar with all the hotkeys."

Zhong was questioned by the officers about the source of his bitcoin. He sat next to the investigators and entered his password while asking them to look away as he typed.

When he opened the laptop, law enforcement could see his bitcoin wallet.

MaGruder disclosed to CNBC in an interview that he had $60 or $70 million worth of bitcoins next to him.

The evidence convinced the investigators that they were on the right track. As he left Zhong's lake house, MaGruder thought to himself, "This is incredible. I believe we've found our suspect."

On Nov. 9, 2021, McAleenan, MaGruder, and Thompson returned to Zhong's home with a large team of officers, obtaining a federal search warrant.

McAleenan had to clarify to Zhong before the raid that his intention was not to assist him, but rather to prosecute him.

"As 'Trevor,' I am a special agent with IRS Criminal Investigation, and we have a federal-approved warrant to search your home," McAleenan stated.

McAleenan added, "And he had this look like, 'Am I being punked?'"

Law enforcement accessed the password-protected contents of Zhong's computer by using a "jiggler" device, which caused the cursor to move continuously, McAleenan stated.

In an upstairs closet, officers discovered a popcorn tin containing a computer worth millions of dollars in bitcoin.

McAleenan stated that sniffer dogs trained to detect electronics discovered a safe hidden in concrete beneath basement floor tiles. According to court documents, the safe contained valuable metals, stacks of cash, and early-year bitcoins. Additionally, they found a wallet with bitcoin from the original Silk Road hack in 2012.

Zhong was busted.

McAleenan stated, "We were able to declare success late at night after finding the evidence we sought. The house glowed, and every agent on the site erupted in cheers."

Agents discovered that Mr. Zhong was an "OG," or an "original gangster," as they sorted through the evidence.

Since the inception of bitcoin in 2009, Zhong was among a select group of early coders who collaborated on developing and refining the technology. Although he was not as prominent as some of the other pioneers in the bitcoin community, he made significant contributions to the original bitcoin code and offered valuable insights to the early developers on crucial issues such as reducing blockchain size.

A hacker who contributed to the creation of bitcoin later became one of the most notorious bitcoin thieves.

McAleenan referred to him as one of the "OGs" in the bitcoin core software development field, stating that he had been involved in the industry for a long time.

Nathaniel Popper, author of "Digital Gold," stated that Zhong's role in the history of bitcoin is reflective of the culture that created the cryptocurrency in the first place.

Popper explained to CNBC that the attendees had different motivations, resulting in a diverse and unusual gathering.

Popper remarked that Bitcoin was always infused with irony, stating, "Yes, it was ironic that a Bitcoin advocate stealing Bitcoin from another Bitcoin advocate. However, I believe that was also a defining characteristic of Bitcoin."

Zhong, now 33 years old, began his one-year and a day sentence at the federal prison camp in Montgomery, Alabama, on July 14, 2023, after pleading guilty to wire fraud.

Officials seized the stolen bitcoin and opened a process for victims to apply for its return, as stated in a forfeiture document CNBC reviewed.

No one claimed the loot, as it's not surprising since Silk Road users in 2012 were mostly drug dealers and their customers. The federal government sold off the stolen bitcoin and kept the proceeds. Some of the revenue generated may be shared with the Athens-Clarke County Police Department, in appreciation of their assistance in the case, as per the IRS-CI.

Zhong, who was sentenced on April 14, refused to speak to CNBC about his role in the crime as he left the courthouse, covering his head with his coat.

In his statement to the judge before sentencing, Zhong stated that possessing billions of stolen bitcoin made him feel significant.

Michael Bachner, Zhong's attorney, states that the theft did not harm the U.S. government.

According to Bachner, the government was not harmed by Jimmy's actions, as if Jimmy had not stolen the coins and the government had seized them from Ross Ulbricht, they would have sold them two years later in 2014, just like they did with other coins.

As a result of Jimmy having them, the government has made a $3 billion profit instead of $14 million.

Zhong, who has had a difficult life and is on the autism spectrum, was severely bullied at school. He found solace over the years in an online community where he could deploy his computing skills. Zhong did not want any jail time because he was worried about Chad, his 13-year-old dog.

The 911 call made by Jimmy Zhong in March 2019, following the unsolved bitcoin theft in Athens, remains unresolved as the perpetrator remains at large.

Zhong’s dog, Chad, is staying with a friend.