Irish Police Crack First of 12 Bitcoin Wallets in $418M Drug Seizure

In brief

Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau has reportedly accessed a wallet containing 500 Bitcoin worth $34 million (€30 million), the first of 12 wallets seized in 2019.
The wallets hold 6,000 Bitcoin now valued at $418 million (€360 million), originally seized from cannabis cultivator Clifton Collins.
Europol provided technical expertise and decryption resources to crack the wallet after Collins claimed to have lost the seed phrases in a break-in.

Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) has gained access to a Bitcoin wallet containing around 500 BTC, worth approximately $34 million (€30 million), marking the first successful breach of 12 wallets seized from a convicted drug dealer in 2019 that have since ballooned to $418 million (€360 million) in value.

The breakthrough came through an operation supported by Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, which provided “highly complex technical expertise and decryption resources vital to the success of the operation,” according to a Garda statement shared with the Irish Times. The 500 BTC, valued at about $71,000 each at time of publication, represent “the proceeds of crime,” CAB confirmed.

Per reports in local media, the wallets belonged to Clifton Collins, a 55-year-old former beekeeper who was jailed for five years after growing cannabis in rented houses and selling the harvested drug to criminals. Collins had invested proceeds from his drug business in Bitcoin from 2011 when the cryptocurrency traded between $0.30 and $29, and ended the year trading at $4.72.

Collins created 12 wallets to store his growing Bitcoin fortune and recorded the private keys in a document hidden in a fishing rod case at a rented property in Co Galway. In interviews with gardaí, he claimed he never saw the case again after a break-in at his home, though reports indicated a clear-out of the property after his arrest may have resulted in the loss. The original seizure in 2019 was valued at $61 million (€53 million).

In its 2023 annual report, the CAB noted that some $1.3 million (€1.2 million) was recovered from Collins after assets including 89 BTC along with “a fishing boat, a Gyro plane, metal detector, electric bicycle and various motor vehicles” were confiscated.