TIL – Gardai in 2017 confiscated a Bitcoin wallet from an Irish drug dealer which contained over 6000 BTC that they still can’t access (Now valued around $300,000,000)
by Darkmemento
TIL – Gardai in 2017 confiscated a Bitcoin wallet from an Irish drug dealer which contained over 6000 BTC that they still can’t access (Now valued around $300,000,000)
by Darkmemento
9 comments
>In early 2017 Clifton Collins, an Irish drug dealer, had a dilemma: where to hide the codes of his illicit €55m (£46m) bitcoin fortune.
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>His solution was to print them on to an A4 piece of paper and stash it in the aluminium cap of a fishing rod case kept at his rented home in Farnaught, Cornamona, County Galway. It seemed a good idea at the time.
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>Then three things happened. Police arrested Collins after finding €2,000 worth of cannabis in his car. He was sentenced to five years in jail. The landlord of the Galway house had it cleared out, resulting in Collins’ possessions being taken to a dump.
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>The codes are now missing, meaning the accounts cannot be accessed.
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>According to the Irish Times, which first reported the story, workers at the dump told the Irish police force, the gardaí, they remembered seeing discarded fishing gear. Waste from the dump goes to Germany and China to be incinerated. The fishing rod case has never been found.
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>Collins, 49, has apparently told the gardaí he has come to terms with the loss of the fortune and considers it punishment for his own stupidity.
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>The high court in Dublin ruled this week that Collins had forfeited the accounts because they were proceeds from crime.
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>He used rented properties around [Ireland](https://www.theguardian.com/world/ireland), including the house in Galway, to grow crops, which he harvested, packaged and sold in Dublin.
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>Collins used the proceeds to buy 6,000 bitcoin in late 2011 and early 2012 when the fledgling cryptocurrency’s value hovered around $5.
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>Amid wild gyrations its value rocketed. [Bitcoin](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/bitcoin) is currently worth $9,673 £7,524). To protect his fortune from hackers Collins spread it across 12 accounts, each with 500 bitcoin. Then he stored the codes in what is probably history’s most costly aluminium cap.
Bitcoin in a dump? IV heard this story before
What an absolute knob. Had €55 million and was still doing €2k weed drops, lol. Now he has no €0 and spent 5 years in jail. Fucking knob knob.
Imagine there’s a piece of trash somewhere over there worth 300m. Could be the basis of a great movie.
Heist of the century right there.
This only protects the network long term, making 6000 less in circulation. There will be even less available for sale come April due to the block reward halfing. Buckle up
Wallets are monitored, he knows how to access it, just can’t.
Cliffs weed was the best of the best, he may have not been a master genius criminal but he was some grower !
Aaaah so this is why the Gardaí set up the Bitcoin task force recently.
A friend of mine in the Gardaí told me this, honestly thought he was taking the piss because he couldn’t tell me why.