Dresden, Germany, Tuesday, February 13, 2024 – In a major blow to cryptocurrency activity, German police seized 50,000 Bitcoins worth approximately $2.17 billion, marking the largest cryptocurrency confiscation in the country’s history, reports said last week.
The Dresden Police Department, supported by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), the FBI, and a Munich-based forensic IT expert company, conducted the complex investigation. 1
According to the investigators, the two suspects allegedly ran a piracy website until 2013, generating illegal profits later converted to Bitcoin.
While details of the conversion remain unclear, authorities stated that the suspects voluntarily transferred the Bitcoin to official BKA wallets, facilitating the seizure.
While the specific charges against the suspects haven’t been disclosed, the investigation continues, centering on suspected commercial money laundering related to the website’s operations.
“The ongoing investigations into suspected unauthorized commercial exploitation of copyrighted works under the Copyright Act and subsequent commercial money laundering, among other things, are directed against two people responsible (m, 40 years old, German; m, 37 years old, Polish) of a leading German company until the end of May 2013 Pirated copy portals. They are said to have purchased Bitcoins with the proceeds. No further information will be provided until the investigation is completed,” the Sachen Police said in its media statement.
- Cryptocurrency Confiscation: https://www.polizei.sachsen.de/de/MI_2024_103935.htm[↩]
