The Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) of Ireland seized 500 BTC, valued at €30 million. These funds were previously considered inaccessible due to lost keys.
The operation was conducted in collaboration with Europol, which provided technical expertise and tools for decryption, enabling authorities to unlock one of the 12 blocked wallets for the first time.
Background
In total, these addresses hold 6000 BTC (approximately €360 million). The assets were confiscated from Clifton Collins, who was convicted for growing cannabis. He began investing in Bitcoin in 2011-2012, when the asset was worth significantly less.
According to Collins, for security reasons, he distributed his funds across 12 wallets. He wrote down the access codes on paper and hid them in a fishing rod case in one of his rented homes.
Later, Collins claimed that the case went missing, possibly due to a robbery or during the cleanup of the property after his arrest. The police seized the devices containing the wallets back in 2019, but they were useless without the codes.
What's Next
Regaining access to the first wallet gives authorities hope of unlocking the remaining assets, as reported by the Irish Times. If the CAB manages to gain control over all 6000 BTC, their sale would represent the largest confiscated asset liquidation in the agency's history.
In 2020, Collins had already surrendered assets worth €1.2 million to the state, which he still had access to. The investigation is now trying to reach the bulk of his crypto capital.
As a reminder, in July 2025, Bloomberg reported that the U.S. Secret Service seized digital assets worth around $400 million.