Bitcoin Forum

Many criminals choose to use bitcoin for a billion reasons. I don't blame them. In fiat money, if police finds out that a drug dealer sells drugs, they arrest him and then his millions go to government.

If he had (let's say) 1000BTC what would police do? There is no law that says "Police can then take his private keys and move his coins to a government's address". If the police cannot do something with the money then they will leave them to his address. Will these coins get lost? I don't think so. When criminal gets fired from the jail (if he went) he will still have his fortune, right?

In 2013, silk road's owner had saved in bitcoin 400,000$ (by that time's price!!!).

They usually seize it if they can, and after a while organize an auction (https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/09/23/uk-bitcoin-auction-seized-criminal-cryptocurrency-wilsons/). If the said BTC has been proven to be used in criminal activity, there's a high chance they'll seize it.

But then you have Bulgaria who owns a massive stash of more than 1% of the existing BTC (https://www.newsbtc.com/2019/07/22/bulgaria-big-on-bitcoin-as-reserves-could-exceed-its-gold-stash/) and hasn't sold/auctioned it yet. These Bitcoins have been seized as well.

Guess each government has their own plan - although the fact that more than 1% of existing BTC is in the hands of Bulgarian government is kinda worrying to say the least.

I'm pretty sure they can seize your assets just the same as when someone gets arrested and prosecuted and they can force you to hand over your assets.  Now I guess whether they find it or not comes down to how well you've hid your bitcoin and if there is anything tracing bitcoin back to you ( when they go look for your assets by court order).

When police investigate a case, and put one under arrest. After that, police can investigate further and if they can get private key, they can seize bitcoin from that one. It is not always the case will be resolved like that. There are two endings and depends on different cases but as the truth is, police often collects many spy information before arresting someone because of suspicious or fraudulent activities.

It means police mostly can seize illegal bitcoin, not all 100% but significant amount.

Well, here is the answer...

https://fortune.com/2017/10/02/bitcoin-sale-silk-road/

Let me quote the important part for you:


Those $48 millions are now capital of the government.

Lol, so the government took $48 million dollars and made them $1.1 billion?

That is a crazy thing dude. Does it mean that the authorities had to make money from this instead of locking it somewhere else? But anyway, it is better to look like that rather than it falls into the devil's hands.

It was really sure that the authorities will seize anything that is illegal but wondering how these people make an auction about their seized Bitcoin. Maybe it was their call and that is maybe their protocols by then rather get nothing benefited from it. And I believe that every country had its plan of what they actually do once caught up.

The government didn't believe in any cryptocurrency asset especially in Bitcoin and that's why they auctioned it, which happens sometimes in the US marshals service after they confirmed of seizing crypto-asset confiscated from criminals. They usually compared the price into the exchange rate or in Coinsmarket Cap.

Look at this article, US Government Auctioning off Bitcoins Worth $37 Million in 2 Weeks (https://news.bitcoin.com/government-bitcoins/). This year they actioned $37 million on US marshal service which is the Bitcoin was seized come from the criminals. They exchange seized Bitcoin into regulated fiat currency and the government will hold the real money not the virtual/digital currency.

If they are able to convert it into cash, most probably it will just go to the police department that went in to seize the bitcoins just like when they seize a money from a drug syndicates, if it is not that huge amount the central government would not take it. But I'm wondering if they could do that, if it happens to be in a hardware wallet then they could seize it but if it is in the online wallet the criminals could just lie to them so they have still money once they are in the prison unless someone freezes it.

I don't know how it will go, I haven't seen a case yet where police seized bitcoins from a criminal, would love to read one.

They do an auction and sell them. Selling through auction is the most logical option. In my local, if police seize any vehicles like motor bike or cars and if the owner don't claim their vehicle, later, authority sold them through auction.

As per 2019 article they at least have 213,519 BTC (https://www.fxstreet.com/cryptocurrencies/news/bulgaria-has-more-bitcoin-holdings-than-gold-reserves-201907250249) and Bulgaria has more than bitcoins hodl than its own gold reserve and it can be compared to the Huobi's cold storage wallet (https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/35hK24tcLEWcgNA4JxpvbkNkoAcDGqQPsP) (the richest bitcoin address).

Yeah, it's kinda worrying since a country having that huge amount of coins and not planning to auction or something about the stash they might be considering of planning on something that other countries may never know.

Well, it depends on the investigation of the police department.  If those Bitcoin came from scam company and they had successfully traced the owner of the funds, there is a possibility that they will return it to the verified claimant, or if it is from an illegal transaction, they can just seize it and auction it later. 

Many bitcoins in Bulgaria. Sounds a bit illegal country  ::)

If they change president(s), I wonder what will happen.

Going for an auction is the common practice on most of the countries to dispose the seized assets. When it comes to digital assets, conducting an auction is an complicated process.

In one of the post it is mentioned about the country Bulgaria having a large volume of seized bitcoin. Probably Bulgaria will serve to be one among the top list with a big volume of bitcoin reserve over the falling years due to the increasing legalized usage of cryptocurrencies.

If only people knew where these seized assets (that are not sold at auction) are spent on, I wouldn't bother much, especially if it goes into something socially benevolent

this is an important point because in most countries they have not legalized bitcoin because the police take the learned bitcoin and do auction as if it were legal goods? Wouldn't it be easier for them to legalize bitcoin to make everything clearer for everyone? and I also wonder about the moral issue, for example, people who buy the bitcoins stolen in the auctions do not have remorse? because without a doubt they are aware that the bitcoin that will be auctioned by the police was used to commit many crimes, I am of the opinion that the bitcoins learned should be donated to needy people

This does not necessarily happen, my dear, this bitcoin resource can be sold by the government by public auction as it happened in Ireland and in the United States of America, where it seized some bitcoin that it says is illegal and sold it by auction at a cheaper price and then seized the money.
Don't worry about the government, there are a lot of ways to get this bitcoin seized.

Confiscating BTC and then auctioning it seem easy to take for a drug dealer.

With how easy it is to learn bitcoin and operate bitcoin wallet, you got to believe these days that police officers know how cryptocurrency works. Some of them probably have already invested in BTC. It's even possible that a corrupt police officer will deliberately target someone who uses BTC for their drug transactions and then confiscate the BTC for himself.  Do you think this had even happen already?

Since you live in a country where Bitcoin is not legalized the police can seize it. Then there are many ways to convert their country’s money from Bitcoin. It will then be deposited in the government treasury through the court of the police. When the police seize an illegal car or any illegal assets, Bitcoin will be deposited in the government treasury through the same process through which it is deposited in the government treasury.

There is no law that explicitly says so but the law is clear that anything related to a crime or to any illegal activity will be confiscated. As a matter of fact, in real life the confiscation far extends to items that are not actually part of the crime.

Normally, while the deliberation of the case is ongoing, the confiscated items will remain stored in a safe place. But when the court has already rendered its guilty verdict or specifically labelled those items to be illegally acquired, then those will become properties of the government. They have the prerogative on what to do with it.

The same is true with confiscated Bitcoins. I guess they have the freedom to either auction it immediately, keep it for a while until a decision is made on what to do with it, or simply convert it to fiat.

But we can only talk of the confiscated Bitcoins. If you have stored some which escaped the investigating eyes of the authorities, then lucky for you.

I'm pretty sure they'll seize the Bitcoin anyways. The law of seizing Bitcoin may not be written yet but Bitcoin is some sort of property anyways, if the Police can prove that Bitcoin involves in the crime itself, which can be done, they will seize the Bitcoin.
I'm not sure what they would do with the amount of Bitcoin but I think they'll put them in an auction and try to sell it to someone who needs it.

I think they will seize it, even though bitcoin is decentralized they still know how good to have this kind of money and if they are going to convert it to fiat currency it will benefit them so much, they will not waste it by ignoring it, its a big money and can help them so much by their finances. Those criminals who stolen that bitcoin should be in prison and if the police can trace who is the real owner of those bitcoin, they will try to return it to the original owner of the bitcoin but if there is no way to find it they will take over it to the government for the project purposes.

If there is a criminal committing a crime and his transactions using Bitcoin, then of course the police will take it. Don't assume that the police
do not know how to sell Bitcoin, with the higher popularity of Bitcoin, intelligence the police will easily find out how to change Bitcoin into fiat.
With a Bitcoin court ruling it will convert to fiat and belongs to the government. If there are no regulations, there is a possibility that the police
will do it illegally. In my country Bitcoin is legal, so there is already a procedure for the seizure of Bitcoin and will be auctioned to become fiat.

As soon as possible don't commit any crime because it can make your assets and money to become wasted. As police aren't able to take his private keys, still the opportunity for him to handle his assets with freedom will also become useless. Criminals are unlucky if they get caught by the authorities that's why they are very careful.

Also one of the reason they are continuing to commit a crime is because there's no law that can take their assets away from them. They will just wait for the time where they can be free again and still commit crime after that. If police seize bitcoin from criminals then, maybe, governments will become rich enough because of the bitcoin's value.

No existing law for seizing Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, but everything that connects to commit the crime will be confiscated.

I bet most government would auction this seized Bitcoin.
As most of the counties doesn't consider them a legal tender. So, It's better to auction them specially when a lot of people are interested in cryptocurrency. 



Kinda worrying and intriguing at the same time. Considering how Bulgaria has no specific regulations on Bitcoin. Definitely they knew about Bitcoin before they operated a series of raid that resulted in seizing more than 200,000 Bitcoins.

They can access the wallet especially if the money is from a dirty money, and their next move is something that we are not allowed to know. But technically, they have to get the funds back and put it into a government owned money not unless someone claimed that they are the victim of the scam. Criminals should not be able to access their money back again, because the case will be useless if ever.

The same procedure but they will auction the seized cryptocurrencies in open auctions and then the fiat funds will go to the government, throughout years we have seen many news headline about these auctions taking place in the US and even recently a few months back there was a big auction by the authorities for millions of dollars worth of bitcoin.

I think policeman has the right to seize all bitcoin from criminals specially if they are caught in the act and that bitcoin may have come from their evil deeds. It may have come from their fraud or they may have stolen the money and converted it into bitcoin so that they will not be suspected, and then to return it to their victims as well.

Possibility of seizing bitcoins from criminals is really low because it is impossible to find private keys unless the caught criminal let the police know about this.They can sell the btc to convert it as money and the same procedure will be followed if fiat money got seized by police.

I think the Police have the right to ask the private key from the criminal if they prove that they have transaction and using that bitcoin in illegal activities because Police will do a lot of investigation and confiscate all the necessary things taken by the criminal . If the criminal die and nobody knows the private key of that person,his bitcoin will be floating in the air and nobody can recover it.

There might not be a specific law dealing with cryptocurrency and seizing someone's private keys, but you can bet that it falls under the same law that allows police to seize any other asset they're allowed to.

As to what the cops do with any crypto they've commandeered, I don't really know--but I'd imagine if the amount was large enough (as in the Silk Road bust) they'd auction it off and keep the proceeds.  But who knows what they do with seized assets.  I don't trust cops as far as I can throw them, so I wouldn't put it past them to just keep it for themselves.  There's a lot of corruption in both law enforcement and government in general in case you hadn't heard.

depend on what is the attitude and the task of the police in your place.

If there is a corrupt officials?for sure they will seize your cryptocurrency and will use it for their own purpose.

Because the world has different rules and different officials.

But if i am the police?and this person is really proven to be criminals?surely i will force Him to give the private key and i will use the money to help the community specially this season of Virus.

This is quite an interesting topic. Well, I haven't heard anything about this, since bitcoin is decentralized  so I really don't have an idea. But, somehow I think, they need a concrete evidence depending on their investigations and a careful tracing about the bitcoin assets...and when this happens to some countries who accepted it legally, maybe the Government will authorized the designated personnel to do the best thing that they could, just to recover all those Bitcoin from Criminals.

There might not be any law which explicitly says police can take your private keys but I am sure that confiscating all your personal belongings which are valuable is an authority that police has so it might not be that difficult for them to seize anyone's private key legally. But coming to the second question I doubt any government has a cold storage in cryptocurrencies where they make all their cryptocurrencies collection. But I think that they might be auctioned for sure. Or if not auctioned would be sold at a fair market value to someone. But yes I am curious what these small third world nations do because I doubt their police would even be knowing about cryptocurrencies and such stuff.

If that police know about bitcoin, they will ask that person what his private keys are, so the police can access his wallet and move the money to their wallet.
If the police can not access the wallet, they can not move the coins, and it will still remain at that wallet.
Maybe that police will ask for help from the other professional to investigate that person about his crime, so they can know where the illegal money is.
But I believe the police will search for more about bitcoin because that will help them investigate the case, and they can arrest that person because of the illegal thing that he did.

It depend on the country because each have rules and regulations regarding seized goods and assets including money. In UK, the seized assets are reinvest back to policing and some other parts are used for other community projects. You can read about that here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32827790 and also https://www.coindesk.com/police-force-confiscates-295-bitcoins-from-criminal-in-uk-first

If they have the private keys seized, then it's no longer the former owner's private keys, assuming he/she is guilty. They own the addresses too or could move the fund to special address, why not?


In regards to the criminal part, I don't see why criminals wouldn't choose fiat currencies especially physical fiats. In my opinion, criminals would even prefer the physical ones to trade within their countries because it's more anonymous to do so.

The first to do is investigating and searching for evidence that the person was involved in a crime or using BTC for a crime.
After being proven and convicted by the court, then the asset could be confiscated or seized if indeed the asset has something to do with the crime he committed. However, here I do not know whether the police confiscated it or other parties. I think there are other authorities from the court in charge of confiscating. And if it is indeed possible, of course, they can get the private key easily from the perpetrator. After that, it will depend on the court there whether the asset will be sold and entered the state treasury or will be auctioned (somehow the meaning).

Have just read about it and yeah it makes sense if the BTC is used for the criminals. The government really can seize it with their authorities. In this case, all the evidence can be used and seized if necessary. Moreover, if there are exact rule and regulation about it clearly.

I've read this article before that's why I know seized crypto assets are being auctioned off by the US  government.


The article also mentioned that United Kingdom also does auctions when it comes to seized crypto but for other countries this might be held differently but from what I know non-cash items except for drugs and other illegal things are mostly held for sale in order for the money to return back to the government.

The official thing is to auction it off but you can never be sure what happens along the way just the way they do it when they seize cash.

If they get 1000 BTC nobody will know for sure if they seized 1010 and the 10 got "lost" somewgere. I don't trust people with money because greed usually takes over and they steal. Policemen are normal people hinding behind a badge and uniform.

If a criminal havent disclosed out his keys then theres nothing they can do and they cant seize that out as long they dont have the keys then theres no way that they can get those coins.

But if they do then i have seen some sort of auction but most of the time if coins came from illegal then im sure that they do keep it up. We dont know on whats their plan ahead

but to know those funds are in their hands then they do have the full control of it.

It depends on the particular government and their laid down rules about seizures of criminals property but certainly, the bitcoin wallet will be sieze because it is a stolen asset attributed to the criminal. Like said by other members, countries like US, UK And some countries often do auction sales of seized properties time to time

If the country has much corrupt police, they will not give the bitcoin to the government, but they will send the bitcoin to their private wallet. But they can not hide the transaction because the transaction will appear in the network, and although the other police don't know who is the owner of the wallet, they can still track from where the connection made.

It depends on which government they belonged because for some reason there are lots of rules out there in each country. some might keep it as government properties when they are proven to be used for criminal activities. some might just hold it and we never know what they may do to it later. then you have some corrupt policemen in every country if the operation didn't publish to their people, there are chances that they will hide it to sold later on.

It is quite easier for police whos intention is to sell the bitcoin for his own good using mixers. The traces and signs that these bitcoins are used in illegal activites will be forever forgotten. So without proper measures on how policemen and government should handle these cases, I am not convinced that it will be in the hands of the government for improvement.

Remember, some other illegal items are being burnt to avoid it being used, but not all of it was completely taken care of, some are still kept by corrupts. What more if it is bitcoin that could be mixed.

The traces will still be there out in the dust, waiting for a proper blockchain analysis to find them out. You cannot hide the tracks of coins on BTC's blockchain, it's immutable and the records will be forever known unlike you said.

I don't think they can easily get the private keys from a criminal. It's usually either the criminals giving up their private keys for their sentence to be mild or their privkey storage was crappy. Otherwise, besides basically torturing the criminal to make him unwillingly tell where the keys are, the authorities may have no luck in finding them - or the criminal could simply say "I lost my keys".

Yeah, let's leave BTC anti-crime regulations for later (or never) - they've abused them enough.

There were cases that the police cleaned the records of the Bitcoin itself, thereby making it like a clean slate? To remove the stamp of it being a stolen BTC, and auction them off. There have been several instances of such events happening already iirc. True enough. Since records that are released in public are officially made by them, whether they are actually the truth or not remains to be known. Still, if exchanges do stamp the coins marked as coins that were stolen, such cases could possibly be avoided no? Police pocketing them (or anyone else for that matter) are unable to sell it due to it being stamped as a stolen coin, and even if they do mix it, it's a matter of them finding it out, right? They have no choice but to release it in the form of an auction so that the stamps of it being stolen are removed.

Or probably yield the keys to some addresses which have smaller funds and deny owning the rest which are connected to different wallets and have bigger amounts. After all, a Bitcoin wallet does not bear any name or identification. The authorities can hardly attach them personally to you.

Looking at the development of Bitcoin to date this coin is very popular, even the government also began to be interested in this technology. Governments are happening in my country they know Cryptocurrency, even the government legalized Bitcoin. So if police arrest criminals and they save money in crypto digital assets like Bitcoin. Of course, they will learn from the Crypto expert or learn about cryptocurrencies. The government can definitely catch criminals, even though criminals save Bitcoin. And the government can channel Bitcoin into cash to be seized by the government.

It has become known to governments that Bitcoin and other digital currencies are among the most popular currencies among scammers. The main reason for criminals demanding bitcoin is that bitcoin is the first and largest digital currency in the crypto market, and it is the most valuable, as it has the highest trading volume compared to its peers, which makes it easy to buy, trade and spend. And it is also difficult to track and seize by the government.

I don't know here in our province but I saw something different.

At that time I was applying for a driver's license when I saw motorcycles full of rusts and decaying on the other side of an office. I think those motorcycles are caught without proper requirements and they are waiting for the owners to pay it that is why they are just there rusting away.

Maybe the idea of auctioning it is not an idea for them at that time.

I am very sure the police will convert the Bitcoin into fiat if they succeed in taking it from the criminals. Almost all countries have cyber crime,
whose job is to solve crimes in the digital world. So there's no way the police don't know how to exchange Bitcoin, so use Bitcoin for illegal
activities does not make our assets secure. Therefore use Bitcoin for legal things, so the police will not take it.

Given a chance to deal with these criminals?for sure i will force them to give the security password and the Private key because all those Money for sure are taken from bad way and must be given to the much needed.

In my country if there are case like this?for sure these People will be dead after getting the private keys lol.

These people don't deserve to be  given second chances..

It will absolutely not make your asset secure by doing illegal activities, Cybercrime groups are experts in tracking illegal activities but if you are an experienced illegal dealer you can make a move to lost them. About the assets, They sure keep it as bitcoin in the wallet just like this article I just read.

https://news.bitcoin.com/tax-agents-confiscate-bitcoin/

It just keeps me thinking about how did they get the seed and the paraphrase for the confiscated wallet.

Bitcoin is no different from other assets or currency seized from the hands of criminals. Same fate before bitcoin as that of real estate, cars, physical cash etc. They'll either be returned to the rightfully owner if that can be proven or auction and used to fund the government or anti-crime organization that must has seized the bitcoin.
Just some questions though, why are the coins held by the Bulgaria government still in their holdings or are they holders too?

Knowing that there's really value, police will surely do that right away after recovering it from the criminals.

This working bodies are the one responsible in working in any cyber based crimes.

There's always radar from the police in regards to this particular digital money, maybe not all but there's department who deals with this.

This is confusing, police have the knowledge so  if they catch you doing illegal they will confiscated it from you.

Bitcoin is a monetary system where you can own a virtual digital currency called Bitcoin as you wish and transfer it as you wish online banking. But if the police seize bitcoin from the criminals, they will hand it over to the government because it has not been legalized yet. In that case, the police will not accept it as it is illegal. Bitcoin is more secure when it comes to online banking.

The first thing they do is confiscate the bitcoins and give them to higher authorities where they decide what to do with them.
Some governments don't do anything and just keep them in a file or something.
I have heard that the belongings of a criminal are given back to them when they leave the prison in that case those bitcoins would be given back to the criminal. He must have a fortune I guess  ;D
Most of the governments auctions the belongings to and then use the money raised towards their developments.
So basically it depends on the governments what they want to do as it is different in every country.

Depends on where the confiscated bitcoins end up to. In the US, they'd auction it off to buyers and the proceeds will go to the state. Tons of seized bitcoin auctions already took place in the US' soil and most of them end up the same way: cash for the public coffers. There's really not a lot places where the coins could go. It just goes back to the circulation of all bitcoins and that's it.



Similar thoughts. Most of these tainted coins are 'washed' by the police in order for it to be used 'cleanly' as if they weren't involved in any crime or wrongdoing.

There are so many options for the development of events. First of all, is cryptocurrency legalized in this state, what status does bitcoin have there, are there regulatory acts on how law enforcement and judicial authorities should deal with cryptocurrency. It is also of great importance whether bitcoins are a means of committing a crime or seized to secure a claimed claim or confiscation of property.
However, in order to decide what to do with bitcoins, law enforcement agencies first need to gain access to the secret keys with their wallet.
 If criminals are careful, then they will never allow law enforcement to gain access to the secret keys of their wallets.

Yeah, the government has done many things that put us thinking about their involvement into bitcoin. They were once against the said bitcoin and now after seizure they will organize an auction for what they don't believed in. The government of the united states of America had made huge amount of money from bitcoin auctions from inception.

If Bitcoin currency has been declared illegal in your country however, it is no less than taking drugs to carry. If the police seize bitcoin, it will not be a problem to convert it into domestic currency. Many times it is deposited in the police treasury. May be deposited in the state treasury of the country. And you know very well that it is not very difficult for the police to convert Bitcoin into national currency because they all know how to do it.

Lol you already called them criminals. When you’re a criminal, what exactly do you expect the government to do, give you back your money when it’s clear that you got them by involving yourself in criminal activities?

Lol, they are going to seize the money from you and then set up an auction just like they did the last time and the whole assets goes to the highest bidder while the money goes to the government pocket lol. Any money that’s not gotten legally, if you’re caught by the government, then you’re losing it as long they can prove how and where it was gotten.

The problem is when the police become corrupt because they see the big number behind bitcoin. That can lead the corrupt police to take a small amount of the money after converting the local currency or sending a small amount of satoshi to their own wallet. But we hope that the police will not do that because the police represented by justice for the people.

You are right that law enforcement is at the top of the list of corruption because they do what they want because the government does not have proper supervision However due to the lack of validity of Bitcoin it will be converted into Fiat currency and its circulation will be increased. However Bitcoin cannot be used as virtual currency by the police Will be deposited in the treasury of the government and they will perform the work as directed by the government.

The police have full authority to take it. The police has the right to confiscate tools and media used to carry out illegal actions such as drug transactions that use bitcoin as a means of payment. The police will take it if they can. the police will interrogate the drug dealer to be able to open his bitcoin wallet.

The acquired bitcoin will be decided in the trial, whether the bitcoin is the right of the government or others.