asset forfeiture

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Indictment Order Issued Against Leaders of the Geek Group for Their Role Using BTC in an Illegal Money Transmission Business

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A U.S. District Court has indicted three individuals behind the now-defunct Geek Group for their role in running an illegal money transmission business that used bitcoin to move funds across states. According to the indictment documents, it was Christopher Allan Boden then president of the Geek Group, who “sold bitcoin to numerous customers, in exchange … Read more

Ireland Seizes Bitcoin Stash Worth $56M But Can’t Sell for 7 Years

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Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) seized 6,000 BTC from a Dublin resident who was accused of growing cannabis on property located in the Wicklow Mountain region. The police found around €450,000 of marijuana plants but the €52 million ($56.1M) of BTC was the biggest single-value asset seizure by the CAB since 1996. A new era … Read more

Global Law Enforcement Has Auctioned Massive Amounts of Bitcoin

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Last month, the U.K. police auctioned off roughly $300,000 worth of cryptocurrencies after they were confiscated by the country’s Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU). Since 2014, law enforcement agencies worldwide have been auctioning large sums of bitcoin seized during investigations. For some reason, governments don’t want the digital assets used in crimes and entities … Read more

U.S. Marshals Auction Completes the Sale of 3,800 BTC

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The U.S. Marshals revealed this week it completed the auction that saw the sale of 3,813 bitcoins ($31Mn USD) on January 22. The bitcoins were seized from various civil forfeitures and criminal cases involving U.S. law enforcement agencies like Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Also read: Weiss Ratings Defends its Decision to … Read more

Bitcoiners Increasingly Targeted by Police as Prices Yield Large Asset Forfeiture Gains   

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The Department of Justice has announced another potential auction of seized bitcoin, totalling over 8 million USD. There’s a noticeable uptick in bitcoin-related prosecutions since at least 2014 and the Ross Ulbricht, Silk Road affair. With the price of bitcoin rising to stratospheric heights, the phenomenon has made bitcoiners relatively wealthy; it might have also … Read more