BTC-e’s infrastructure was being hosted by a company not in Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Seychelles, or any of the other far-flung locations its owners had pointed to in their attempt to throw off snoops. They were in Northern Virginia. In fact, the IP addresses led to a data center just six miles away from Gambaryan’s desk at the NCIJTF in Washington, D.C. For a brief moment, Gambaryan wondered if BTC-e might even secretly be a CIA honeypot, then dismissed that theory as too absurd.
