Irish authorities have seized approximately $35 million in Bitcoin from a convicted drug dealer after accessing a long-dormant wallet. The investigation, supported by Europol, recovered 500 BTC previously thought lost when private keys stored on paper were accidentally discarded.
Irish authorities have accessed one of 12 dormant Bitcoin wallets belonging to convicted drug dealer Clifton Collins. They transferred 500 BTC, worth around $35 million, to Coinbase in a single transaction flagged by blockchain intelligence firm Arkham.
Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) opened the wallet with technical support from Europol’s Cybercrime Center. A report confirmed this as the first confirmed recovery in a case ongoing since 2017.
Collins originally purchased about 6,000 BTC between 2011 and 2012 for between $4 and $6 per coin. He split the stash equally across 12 wallets for security, each holding 500 BTC.
He printed the private keys on paper and hid them inside an aluminum fishing rod cap. His landlord later disposed of these belongings while clearing a rented property, reportedly destroying the keys.
Collins was arrested in 2017 after a traffic stop uncovered cannabis in his vehicle. A judge later sentenced him to five years in prison and ordered the forfeiture of his Bitcoin holdings as proceeds of crime.
The drug dealer claimed the access codes were permanently lost, making the court ruling unenforceable until this recovery. Eleven wallets containing approximately $390 million at current prices remain untouched.
On-chain data shows the 500 BTC were moved to Coinbase Prime on March 24. At the time of the 2019 court order, his total holdings were valued at nearly $61 million.
The full original stash would now be worth around $426 million based on Bitcoin’s current price near $71,000. The recovered wallet alone represents a nearly 18,000-fold return on Collins’s initial investment.
