Irish Government Seizes 370 Million in Bitcoin but Struggles to Liquidate Private Key Possibly Lost

The Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) of Ireland has been unable to access the $56 million worth of Bitcoin confiscated from drug dealer Clifton Collins in 2020. The value of these Bitcoins has now risen to as high as $378 million. The Irish authorities have been unable to access these Bitcoins for the past four years due to the loss of the private keys. This unfortunate situation has led to the Bitcoins being rendered inaccessible by the authorities. Collins stated that he lost the private keys, explaining that he had stored the document containing the keys in a fishing rod case, which was either lost during a burglary or misplaced during a clearing of his property by authorities. Despite the efforts of CAB to recover some funds from the drug dealer, including 89 Bitcoins, a fishing boat, and an electric bike, the majority of the funds remain inaccessible. On the other hand, the United States government has seized over 200,000 Bitcoins from cybercriminals and dark web markets. They are currently stored in encrypted, password-protected offline wallets controlled by the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, or other institutions. This includes the seizure of 69,369 BTC from the dark web’s largest black market, Silk Road, in November 2020, 94,643 BTC from the Bitfinex hacker in January 2022, and 51,326 BTC from Silk Road hacker James Zhong in March 2022, of which the U.S. government still holds 41,500 BTC.