In a major development, Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) has pulled another 500 Bitcoin worth roughly 27 million euros out of a cache of wallets linked to a convicted drug trafficker, pushing the agency’s total haul in the case past $92 million.
CAB confirmed the seizure on Thursday, crediting Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre with providing operational coordination throughout the investigation. Europol said it hosted meetings at its headquarters in The Hague and contributed “highly complex technical expertise and decryption resources” to help investigators access the funds.
This is the third time authorities have cracked open one of the 12 wallets originally holding 6,000 BTC that Collins built up through cannabis cultivation and trafficking. The first 500 BTC came out in March. Another 500 followed in May. Thursday’s seizure brings the running total to 1,500 BTC, currently valued at over $92 million.
Collins, a former beekeeper, got into Bitcoin early, buying coins in late 2011 and early 2012 when prices were measured in dollars rather than tens of thousands. The private keys he needed to access those funds were stored at a rented property in County Galway, but the paper holding them was reportedly lost when the property was cleared out after Collins went to prison in 2017 for five years.
Meanwhile, onchain data from Arkham Intelligence shows wallets associated with Collins still hold around 4,500 BTC, worth more than $275 million at current prices, pointing to nine of the original twelve wallets sitting untouched. On Thursday, a wallet linked to Collins moved 500 Bitcoin to an unknown address, though authorities have stopped short of officially confirming the connection between the latest seizure and Collins specifically.
CAB declined to identify the wallet owner or provide further details.
