Bitcoin worth €370m seized by CAB cannot be sold as access codes to digital wallets were lost 

Criminal Assets Bureau seized 6,000 bit coins from drug dealer Clifton Collins in 2020 but after he was jailed, his landlord cleared out the house and the codes were lost

CAB has seized and sold cryptocurrency worth almost €6.5m in the past 10 years, according to new figures from the Department of Justice. File picture: Ozan Kose / AFP via Getty Images

The Criminal Assets Bureau has been unable to realise the value of 6,000 seized bitcoins which are worth just under €370m because the access codes to digital wallets have been lost.

CAB has, though, seized and sold cryptocurrency worth almost €6.5m in the past 10 years, according to new figures from the Department of Justice.

CAB became the first law enforcement agency in the world to seize Ethereum in 2016, which it subsequently sold through a cryptocurrency exchange for €22,656.

Almost 127 bitcoins were seized and sold through a receiver on behalf of CAB in 2021, generating revenue of over €5.4m after costs. This was returned to six victims of a Sim-swapping scam.

Another tranche of seized bitcoin was sold for just over €1m by the agency, but the largest single seizure of the cryptocurrency has eluded the agency since the High Court ordered its forfeiture to the State in 2020.

A total of 6,000 bitcoins were seized from drug dealer Clifton Collins, who had run a large-scale cannabis cultivation operation for more than a decade. He had used the proceeds to purchase cryptocurrency in 2011 and 2012.

He had hidden the access codes to 12 digital wallets inside the aluminium cap of a fishing rod case in his rented house in Connemara, Co Galway. When he was jailed for his involvement in drugs, his landlord cleared out the house and the codes were lost.

The cryptocurrency was worth about €50m at the time, but its value has since grown to just under €370m.

Last week, justice minister Jim O’Callaghan confirmed the digital wallets seized by the State remain inaccessible and the assets cannot be sold.

He was replying to a parliamentary question from Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman, and revealed a total of €6.5m worth of cryptocurrency had been seized and sold by CAB since 2016.

Since 2020, sales of cryptocurrency have taken place on a regulated crypto-exchange, which Mr O’Callaghan described as the most secure and cost-effective method of disposal.

However, the identity of the purchaser is not revealed when assets are sold on a cryptocurrency exchange, and he was therefore unable to provide these details to Mr O’Gorman.

The minister said it was a matter for the exchange to conduct anti-money-laundering compliance checks for all of its customers, and added this would remain the preferred method of receivership sale of cryptocurrency for CAB.