Irish Crime Gangs Store Digital-Asset Private Keys in Safe Deposit Boxes, Decrypt Reports
Summary
- Irish crime groups are renting private safe deposit boxes to store digital-asset wallet private keys and seed phrases.
- The tactic is intended to avoid seizure by investigators by keeping wallet access information in offline vaults rather than the digital assets themselves.
- Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau, or CAB, said it had identified such digital-asset concealment cases and reported them to the government’s anti-money laundering steering committee.
Forecast Trend Report by Period
Irish crime groups are renting private safe deposit boxes to hide wallet private keys and seed phrases for digital assets, Decrypt reported on September 7.
Michael Gubbins, director of Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau, or CAB, told the Sunday Independent that criminal organizations are keeping private keys and seed phrases for digital-asset wallets in private vaults alongside cash, luxury watches and passports.
Private keys and seed phrases are essential information needed to access digital-asset wallets and move funds. By storing wallet access credentials offline rather than the digital assets themselves, crime groups are seeking to avoid seizure by law enforcement.
“There could be digital-asset keys, cash, watches, even passports in the box,” Gubbins told the newspaper. He said investigators had confirmed such cases during actual probes. CAB also reported the practice to the Irish government’s anti-money laundering steering committee.
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