CoinGecko data shows ireland's Criminal Assets Bureau moved 500 bitcoin valued at $38 million from a dormant wallet cluster on August 28, blockchain parsers confirm. The coins trace to Clifton Collins, a cannabis dealer whose private keys were lost inside a fishing rod container during a 2017 police raid.
The transfer marks the second major on-chain action from the Collins seizure. In 2021, authorities seized roughly 6,000 BTC from Collins' properties, one of the largest criminal bitcoin hauls in European history.
At the time, the keys to a portion of those funds remained inaccessible after Collins concealed them in a hollowed-out fishing rod that was later discarded. per CoinGecko, Bitcoin traded at $77,645 during the move, down 3.9% in the prior 24 hours and 0.7% over the week.
Figures from the desk show total crypto market capitalization stood at $2.64 trillion with bitcoin dominance at 59%.
The fishing rod seizure
CoinGecko data shows collins was convicted in 2017 for cultivating cannabis worth an estimated €2 million. During the investigation, gardaí discovered he had accumulated bitcoin through early mining and darknet sales. The private keys for a significant tranche were written on paper and hidden inside a fishing rod tube.
When the container was lost during evidence handling, those coins became unrecoverable, until now. CAB worked with blockchain analytics firms to trace the UTXO cluster associated with Collins' known addresses.
The 500 BTC moved this week represent a subset of the originally seized amount that remained in cold storage after the 2021 liquidation of approximately 1,500 BTC.
Wallet profile and destination
On-chain data shows the source addresses were inactive since 2018, consistent with the timeline of the lost keys. The destination cluster consists of 12 new addresses receiving between 20 and 60 BTC each. No deposits to known exchange hot wallets have been detected in the first 12 hours post-transfer.
The dispersion pattern suggests institutional custody rather than immediate liquidation. Similar government seizures in Germany and the United States have used comparable fragmentation before over-the-counter sales or structured auctions. | Tranche | BTC Amount | Approx.
USD Value
| Date | Status |
|---|---|
| Initial seizure | 6,000 |
| $120M+ | 2021 |
| Partial liquidation | First sale |
| 1,500 | $45M |
| 2022 | Completed |
| Current move | 500 |
| $38M | Aug 28, 2026 |
Historical parallel
The Collins case mirrors the 2020 German government seizure of 50,000 BTC from the Movie2k piracy operation. That tranche was dispersed across multiple custodial addresses before being sold in batches over 18 months, minimizing market impact. The Irish approach appears to follow a similar playbook.
What happens next
CAB has not announced a sale timeline. Market observers will watch for deposits to exchanges such as Kraken, Coinbase, or Bitstamp, the primary liquidity venues for euro-denominated bitcoin flows. A structured auction, similar to the U.S.
Marshals Service model, remains a possibility for the remaining 4,000 BTC still in cold storage.
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