Criminal Assets Bureau seizes 6k bitcoin, sale impossible without access codes

[rdiddly]

That's okay because asset forfeiture is about denying the convicted party access to the fruits of their crimes, and not about the incredibly conflict-of-interest-riddled idea that the state should be able to plunder those assets and profit from it... riiiight??

[bowmessage]

How is access denied if the private keys remain unchanged?

[psychlops]

In no real justice system could selling backyard weed justify the seizure of sixty million dollars.

[rootusrootus]

They did not seize 60 million dollars (CAB wouldn't seize money in dollars anyway...). They seized* 6000 bitcoins. The equivalent cash value in euros or dollars is completely hypothetical.

*and technically, they seized nothing without the private keys

[kevin_thibedeau]

How do you earn that much on "backyard" anything?

[bowmessage]

No doubt there are other copies of those codes, but now Collins has plausible deniability :)

[capableweb]

Seems to be a little bit of doubt though:

> Much of what he has told the Garda has been supported by a range of witnesses, including those who cleared his house, his landlord and others who helped him break up his bitcoin fortune into 12 accounts. Garda believe he has genuinely lost the codes for the accounts

But if they are in on the reward, they might just help corroborate his story in order to get a piece. Who knows?

[jacques_chester]

If they know the wallet address, any movements will be a giant neon sign screaming "hey, arrest me again!"

[BubRoss]

If they don't have the private keys and use them to move the balance to addresses that only they control, they didn't really seize anything.

[est31]

The way I see it is that you can seize a car, airplane or ship without having keys for it. What's important is that the government considers those bitcoins as its property. So if anyone in the future is moving BTC from those addresses, they are infringing upon government property like someone who stole a police car. The government might even auction that right off, although the fact that they don't have immediate access probably reduces the value by a large amount.

[NullPrefix]

Seize the day

[seibelj]

Wow this whole story is a lie. The cops actually thought they “seized” the accounts because they knew the addresses, but never had the private keys! What a disaster

[TwoBit]

Is there any actual way to "seize" a bitcoin collection without knowing the master key(s)?

[ur-whale]

While they'd heard it mentioned before, Criminal Assets Bureau discovers what "Bitcoin is unconfiscatable" actually means.

[drcode]

In other news:

- Seattle woman wins Kentucky Derby without having a horse

- Chicago man wins lottery without having winning numbers

[intpbro]

Ouch