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Irish Police Recover $35M Bitcoin From Drug Dealer’s Lost Wallet
Irish authorities have reportedly accessed one of 12 long-dormant Bitcoin wallets belonging to convicted drug dealer Clifton Collins. On March 24, they transferred 500 BTC worth around $35 million to Coinbase in a single…
Irish authorities have reportedly accessed one of 12 long-dormant Bitcoin wallets belonging to convicted drug dealer Clifton Collins. On March 24, they transferred 500 BTC worth around $35 million to Coinbase in a single on-chain transaction, a move that was flagged by blockchain intelligence firm Arkham as the first confirmed recovery in a case that has…
Key takeaways
Quick scan — what you need to know:
- Irish authorities have reportedly accessed one of 12 long-dormant Bitcoin wallets belonging to convicted drug dealer Clifton Collins.
- On March 24, they transferred 500 BTC worth around $35 million to Coinbase in a single on-chain transaction, a move that was flagged by blockchain intelligence firm Arkham as the first confirmed…
- Dormant Wallet Springs Back to Life On-chain data shared by Arkham shows 500 BTC left a wallet labeled “Clifton Collins: Lost Keys” at 12:51 on March 24 and was transferred to Coinbase…
- With questions raised over who had managed to access Collins’s Bitcoin, a local news outlet reported that it was Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) that had opened the wallet with…
Background
What led here, in plain terms:
- However, there are still 11 other wallets remaining, with the untouched holdings amounting to roughly $390 million at BTC’s current price near $71,000.
- Collins’s story makes for interesting reading.
- He once ran large-scale cannabis grow houses in the Dublin area and used his drug profits to buy around 6,000 BTC between 2011 and 2012, when they went for $4 to $6.
- As a basic precaution against theft, he split his stash equally across 12 wallets, with each holding 500 BTC.
Why it matters
Why readers and decision-makers should care:
- But that has risen dramatically, and the full original stash would be worth around $426 million, going by the current price.
- The recovered wallet alone represents a return that’s nearly 18,000 times what the 55-year-old spent to buy some of the BTC.
- The post Irish Police Recover $35M Bitcoin From Drug Dealer’s Lost Wallet appeared first on CryptoPotato.