Irish Authorities Seize Another 500 Bitcoin, Bringing 2026 Total to 1,500

Irish authorities have seized another 500 Bitcoin, bringing the total confiscated this year to 1,500.

Cointelegraph reported on July 3 that Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau officially confirmed the seizure of 500 Bitcoin in cooperation with the European Cybercrime Centre. The newly seized Bitcoin are worth about $30.9 million at current prices.

The bureau said the 1,500 Bitcoin seized this year are worth about $92.4 million. Europol provided operational coordination, technical assistance and decryption support during the investigation. Authorities did not disclose the wallet owner’s identity or further details of the probe.

The seizure comes months after the bureau said in March that it had gained access to and confiscated a cryptocurrency wallet holding 500 Bitcoin. Irish media at the time linked the wallet to convicted drug trafficker Clifton Collins.

Collins is known to have bought 6,000 Bitcoin with drug-trafficking proceeds between late 2011 and early 2012 and stored them across 12 wallets. The private keys were written on a single A4 sheet of paper hidden inside the aluminum lid of a fishing rod case. The paper was reportedly lost in 2017 after Collins was arrested and his landlord disposed of his belongings.

Authorities have not officially confirmed whether the latest seizure was linked to Collins. Arkham, an on-chain analytics platform, said 500 Bitcoin moved that day from a wallet linked to Collins to an unknown address. Wallets tied to him still hold about 4,500 Bitcoin, worth about $277 million at current prices.