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Ireland's Criminal Assets Bureau is unable to regain control of 12 wallets containing 5,500 BTC ($335.9 million) seized from a drug dealer in 2019. At the time of confiscation, they were valued at $56 million, the Irish Times reports.
In 2020, the High Court convicted 49-year-old Clifton Collins of home-growing cannabis and ordered him to hand over the seized coins to CAB.
Police opened a case in February 2017.
Collins was one of the first investors in digital gold.
The CAB has been unable to access the confiscated first cryptocurrency for the past four years. During this time, its price has jumped from $9,000 to $61,300.
Collins first invested in Bitcoin in 2011, when prices ranged from $0.30 to $29. He claims he hid the document with the seed phrases in a fishing rod case, which could have disappeared during a break-in or while cleaning up after an arrest.
According to the CAB, Collins was ordered to pay €1.2 million ($1.3 million), including 89 BTC, as well as “a fishing boat, a gyroplane, a metal detector, an electric bicycle and various vehicles.”
In April, Arkham revealed the cryptocurrency balances of different countries.
At that time, the top three leaders included Germany, which in July completely got rid of 49,858 BTC for €2.6 billion ($2.88 billion).
The US holds 203,239 BTC and other cryptocurrencies worth ~$12.8 billion.
Recall that in December 2023, the appellate court issued a confiscation order for 69,370 BTC belonging to the darknet marketplace Silk Road, which was closed more than 10 years ago. The funds were seized in November 2020.
In April 2024, a US government-controlled wallet with 30,174 BTC initiated a transfer of ~2,000 BTC to a Coinbase Prime address. In August, a subsequent transaction left the wallet with 10,000 BTC.
In July, the US Marshals Service selected the platform to store and sell high-cap cryptocurrencies.