FORCE’s Unlawful Seizure of R.P.’s Funds R.P. was a California resident who held an account at CoinMKT during at least 2013 and 2014. R.P maintained cash in his account with CoinMKT as well as various brands of digital currency to include bitcoin, litecoin, feathercoin, and worldcoin, On February 5, 2014, CoinMKT emailed FORCE regarding what it initially believed to be suspicious activity by R.P. noting that R.P. had withdrawn "$10,000 three times instead of once for $30,000." CoinMKT sought direction from FORCE on how to proceed, noting R.P. had approximately 128 bitcoin (approximately $109,000 at the time) in his acoount with CoinMKT. On February 8, 2014, FORCE emailed CoinMKT directing them to suspend R.P.'s account and to “tell [R.P.] that the federal government is investigating him for federal violations of 13 USC 1956 (money laundering) and 18 USC 1960 (unlicensed money transmitter) and 31 USC 5324 (structuring).....I will seize the 128 btc federally and do all the paperwork....” On or about February 7, 2014, FORCE instructed a DEA intelligence analyst to run a criminal history check on R.P., noting that the purpose was to uncover illegal activity on R.P. According to a subsequent report FORCE authored, the only information found on R.P. was that he had previously withdrawn $17,000, had a felony conviction for vandalism. and was a self-employed actor. Nonetheless, on February 8, 2014, at FORCE's direction, CoinMKT froze R.P.'s account. On February 10, 2014, FORCE, now using his official DOJ account instead of the personal email account he had historically used to communicate with CoinMKT, served an administrative subpoena on CoinMKT requesting that they provide all information regarding R.P. FORCE also sent the subpoena to CoinMKT by facsimile later that day. CoinMKT's facsimile services are hosted by "Hello Fax,“ a company based in San Francisco within the Northern District of California. On February 11, 2014, CoinMKT's CEO emailed FORCE to relay that "some feedback from other users ... may throw off our thesis about this user's [R.P.'s] activity. Let's talk when you can. I'm glad I caught this." CoinMKT's CEO has explained that he learned that a glitch in CoinMKT's system was not permitting users to withdraw more than $10,000 worth of currency at a time, thereby diminishing the earlier suspicion that R.P. was structuring transactions or doing anything criminal. FORCE replied to this email, inquiring whether CoinMKT had frozen R.P.'s account and seeking information concerning R.P.'s digital currency balances, noting that R.P. may have a mental condition. On March 1, 2014, R.P. wrote to CoinMKT advising that he had not been able to log in to his account. CoinMKT replied to R.P. that his account had been "suspended due to suspicious activity. Under government subpoena, we have been instructed to forward your communication to authorities. We have cc'd Mr. Carl FORCE who will be your point of contact, please send further communication to him to resolve this issue." A Report of Investigation FORCE authored states that on February 26, 2014 and March 6, 2014, FORCE attempted to contact R.P. stating "I have attempted to contact you numerous times via telephone and emails, yet have received no response. I am trying to ascertain if your suspicious financial transactions at CoinMKT have a legitimate explanation. The facts show that you are structuring deposits and withdrawals. In addition, virtual currencies have been linked to illicit activities such as illegal narcotics transactions, money laundering, child pornography, etc. As such, I am starting the legal process to seize your Real Money Balances at CoinMKT. A negative response to this email will be evidence that you are abandoning your assets at CoinMKT.“ Over the coming weeks, FORCE directed CoinMKT to seize R.P.'s account. CoinMKT has expressed it was hesitant to do so, but did not want to draw the ire of federal law enforcement, especially given that the digital currency field was already subject to fairly intense law enforcement scrutiny. CoinMKT also felt it prudent to defer to the direction of a federal law enforcement agent and trusted that if FORCE was telling CoinMKT that R.P. was using their company as a platform for illegal activities, it was not in a position to second guess that conclusion. Nonetheless. CoinMKT requested something in writing from FORCE before seizing R.P.'s account. During this March 2014 timeframe, R.P.'s account with CoinMKT contained two forms of currency. First. it contained approximately $37,000 in cash. Second, it contained approximately $297,000 in four forms of different digital currencies (bitcoin, litecoin, feathereoin, and worldcoin). FORCE Instructed CoinMKT to seize R.P.'s balances. CoinMKT effectuated this seizure by creating an entirely new account with the name “R_seized." On March 12, 2014, CoinMKT emailed FORCE, carbon copying others at the DEA, stating that it had created the "R_seized" account, providing the login and password information and asking FORCE to "please advise when you would like us to move the funds" from the R.P. account into the R_seized account. Later that same day FORCE replied to CoinMKT, including none of the other recipients on the original message in his reply, "Transfer them now please.“ On March 23, 2014, using his official DEA email account with no one carbon copied, FORCE emailed CoinMKT noting that "we checked the balances this morning [in the R_seized account] and the coins are still not there. Is everything okay?" CoinMKT replied later that same day that they had experienced some logistical issues in effectuating the transfer of digital currency from R.P.'s account to the R_seized account. On March 26, 2014, CoinMKT emailed FORCE stating "the [R.P.] funds should be in your account. We made the move 2 days ago but please confirm on your end that you have received them.“ FORCE replied, from his official DEA email account with no one carbon copied, "Yes they are in DEA's account now. Thank you very much!" I have continued that no such digital currency funds were received in any official DEA account, but instead went into FORCE's own personal account with Bitstamp, as described further below. On April 3, 2014. FORCE emailed CoinMKT from his official DEA account, this time carbon copying three other DEA employees including his supcrvisor, directing CoinMKT to “please convert the $37,051.08 that has been seized from R.P. into a certified check and forward it to DEA ... please make the certified check payable to the U.S. Marshals Service." CoinMKT did so and sent the government a certified check for $37,051.03, representing that portion of R.P.'s account that had been in cash. In a Report of Investigation dated March 11, 2014, FORCE wrote that “on March 13, 2014, DEA seized the following: 179.7977 bitcoin; 3,417,565 Litecoin; 366.511.2876 feathercoin; and 621.439,7182 worldcoin from [R.P.] for violations of the Bank Secrecy Act statutes, more specifically structuring financial transactions and money laundering. [R.P.] was exploiting CoinMKT to launder his illicit proceeds." FORCE did not attempt to translate these various digital currency balances to any approximate dollar values as he had done in other instances. In a Report of Investigation dated April 3, 2014, FORCE made reference to the earlier March 11 Report of Investigation and noted that "on April 4, 2014, DEA seized $37,206.30 from [R.P.]... FORCE directed CoinMKT to forward a certified check for $37,206.30 to the U.S. Marshal’s Service" A Standard Seizure Form (SSF) is a government form that is typically completed by the DEA when funds are seized. FORCE prepared two SSFs relative to R.P.: (1) an SSF dated April 3, 2014, for the approximately $37,000 in cash that was seized from R.P.’s account; and (2) an SSF dated March 12, 2014, for the approximately $297,000 worth of digital currency that was seized from R.P.’s account. However, FORCE instructed the DEA Asset Forfeiture Specialist not to input the digital currency SSF into the government's computer tracking system for seized funds, the Consolidated Asset Tracking System (CATS), but rather to "hold" it for “a few months" or until further notice. The DEA Asset Forfeiture Specialist made a handwritten note om the digital currency SSF noting that FORCE had expressly directed it not be input at that time. FORCE included a copy of the SSF relating to the cash in the official case file of the Silk Road investigation.[17] However, he did not include a copy of the SSF relating to the digital Currency in that same case file. It appears that FORCE “papered up“ the seizure of the digital currency portion of R.P,'s account in such a way that he may have thought he would he covered in the event anyone ever asked any questions about it being documented, but at the same time in a way that made it appear as if the approximately $37,000 in cash was the sum total of all that was seized from R.P. Telling in this regard is that (1) when FORCE emailed from his official DEA account about the approximately $37,000 in cash he Carbon copied numerous individuals; the same was not true when he emailed about the approximately $297,000 Worth of digital currency; (2) FORCE's co-case agent has advised that she was ------------------ 17] My investigation confirmed with FORCE's then-supervisor that the R.P. “case” had no known connection to the Silk Road. ------------------ of the belief that only approximately $37,000 total was seized from R.P.'s account, and was unaware of the remaining approximately $297,000 in digital currency that had been seized from R.P.'s account; (3) FORCE completed SSFs for both the cash and digital currency seizures but did not include the SSF for the digital currency in the case file; and (4) FORCE directed that the digital currency SSF be held. In sum, I believe the way in which FORCE documented the R.P. seizure was FORCE's attempt to give himself plausible deniability by memorializing the digital currency seizure in both a Report of Investigation and SSF, albeit in a fashion that did not draw attention to the fact that it was worth approximately $291,000. The documentation is particularly oblique for someone unfamiliar with digital currency, as many in FORCE's chain of command were. The approximately $297,000 worth of digital currency funds from R.P.'s CoinMKT account did not make it to any official DEA or government account. Instead, that amount ultimately went into FORCE's personal Bitstamp account and was subsequently liquidated into U.S. dollars into FORCE's personal checking account. Specifically, on April 14, 2014, the funds moved from the R_seized account that CoinMKT had set up into a pass-through account. Then, on April 16, 2014, those funds moved from the pass-through account to FORCE's personal Bitstamp account. In late April 2014, FORCE made a withdrawal request of approximately $201,000 from his Bitstamp account to his personal checking account. I have also confirmed with DEA that no case was ever opened against R.P. I am aware of no legal basis on which FORCE seized R.P.'s balances. Within days of the seizure of the approximately $297,000 in digital currency funds from R.P., FORCE launched his own personal limited liability company dedicated to the investment in and speculation of digital currency, Engedi, LLC.