NCA cop stole top criminal's cryptocash

A NATIONAL Crime Agency officer who stole and laundered cryptocurrency from a “Dark Web” mastermind he arrested was jailed for five and-a-half years.

- By Pat Hurst

Father-of-three Paul Chowles, 42, was part of a team investigating Liverpudlian Thomas White, the “guiding mind” behind the Silk Road 2.0 site – an online black market for illegal drugs – at the time.

White had 97 Bitcoin on a memory stick which was seized in 2017 and transferred to a team including digital investigator Chowles at the NCA in Bristol.