According to Bloomberg's report, these coins were seized by the US government and it is confirmed that the coins were not hacked.
What remains the real question is why right now this hacker has decided, as they say, to hand over what he has kept for years? Obviously there was that “money or life” thing, but again the question remains why the hacker didn’t try to disguise the trail and save the BTC for himself, because he had years to figure out how to do it. He could be a hero, a digital Robin Hood who could anonymously make tens of thousands of people happy and share everything with them, which would certainly be nobler than rubbing the neck of a fat goose. At least we see that the US is in step with the technology, they use a native-segwit address
With the ~144,000 BTC initially siezed from Ross/ Silk route, the total stands at over 210,000 BTC that the US authorities had access to due to the Silk Route investigation. The mystery now is the capitulation and fate of "Individual X".
