A Danvers man who once paid for a class on how to hide a Bitcoin business is now giving up more than $1.5 million in cash, silver, and crypto after a federal court locked in the forfeiture tied to his prison sentence.
Trung Nguyen, 48, also known online as “DCS420,” was sentenced in May 2025 to six years in federal prison and three years of supervised release. U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns also entered a money judgment of $1,513,000.04. A more recent forfeiture order identifies the specific property the government is taking: $50,000 seized from a Swampscott business, more than $34,000 in cash found in Nguyen’s basement, a silver bar, dozens of silver coins (including four stamped with Bitcoin imagery), and holdings across several wallets — about 6.7 bitcoin, nearly 57,000 Cardano, more than 1,900 Chainlink, plus smaller amounts of Ethereum and Monero.
From September 2017 through October 2020, Nguyen ran National Vending LLC as a cash-to-Bitcoin exchange. Customers handed him physical cash; he sent them bitcoin and kept a fee. Federal law treats virtual-currency exchangers as money transmitters. That status requires registration with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), an anti-money-laundering program, and reports on large or suspicious transactions. Nguyen never registered and never filed the required Suspicious Activity Reports or Currency Transaction Reports…