Bitcoin Forum

There it is.  They can't seize the money because they can't get the password. Apparently the police has somehow made sure that he can't access his funds.

I wouldn't be so sure, all he needs is a backup of his wallet, but maybe he skipped on that little detail. He supposedly served a 2 year sentence and is now free.

Some Articles:

The reuters one has more details.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crypto-currency-germany-password/police-seize-60-million-of-bitcoin-now-wheres-the-password-idINKBN2A511T
https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2021/2/5/22268646/german-police-bitcoin-digital-wallet-missing-password

I've seen so many silly (to say it nice) tweets on this topic, it really gives quite a dimension for how little is the group of those understanding Bitcoin.
I am really curious what will happen if those funds will disappear some day in the direction of a mixer.

The only .. problem is that far too few are keeping multiple copies / backups for the wallet and there's a good chance he indeed doesn't have a backup. Or does he? Time will tell  :)

I'm just curious too how did they ensure that the fraudster can't access his Bitcoin, they don't know if that fraudster has backup seeds on that wallet and it seems they don't know how Bitcoin works.  Look, the fraudster didn't give the password because he knows that someday he will be able to recover and use the Bitcoin mixing service to untraced the transaction.

Probably one day, the confiscated amount of Bitcoin might transfer into other wallets.  I don't think the word "confiscate" is accurate to this, since the German prosecutors didn't own the keys, it means they don't actually hold the Bitcoin.  Unless, if the police will order all exchange and mixing service to block the Bitcoin address where Bitcoin was stored and marked scam address, there's a chance maybe that the fraudster can't access his Bitcoin.

His biggest problem when he gets out of jail will be how to explain to some bad guys that he forgot his password - and I'm sure many will be interested in talking to him a little bit. I believe they have very convincing methods to extract the truth, whatever the truth may be.

What is not very clear to me is this part of the article :


Well, most people know that mining BTC with ordinary computers does not make sense for at least 7 or more years in the past - so the question is how did he manage to mine even 1700 BTC in that way?

Volume maybe. Some time ago I was using a free anti virus from a big name company and often it just loaded the CPU to 99% for no reason for extended periods of time. Most likely it was some bug, but who knows?

The police don't even need the backup. All they need to do is to threaten the dude with a far longer sentence, enough to scare the dude to hand over access. Dude's actually lucky that this is in Germany; if it was in a 3rd world country with a unethical and immoral government, I wouldn't even be surprised if torture is going to be their option.

Torture wouldn't be necessary. There are better ways than just make him talk.

It would be too good to think police wouldn't go over to this computer and personal file to find some clue or back up there. They may even go beyond like check out his email. Computer forensics can definitely do miracles if for instance he once backedup his wallet. They won't let that $60M just pass by their hands and just quit, that's too easy for this fraudster.

It's going to completely depend on the person; obviously, we really don't know him personally and to what extent will he refuse to hand over access to the coins.

As for digging up his computer, well, it's a safe assumption that if the dude was smart enough to take advantage of the available devices, he's probably smart enough to not keep a backup(or an unencrypted backup) on his computer. But then again, we barely know anything about how smart the dude is so we're really just speculating.

Well the fraudster could simply lie to the bad guys that he already said the password to the police and he no longer has access to the bitcoins.
He could simply move his bitcoins to a new address before lying to the bad guys about it.
Then run away to another country where nobody would know him and then enjoy the rest of his life with the $60 million.
Sounds like a movie  ;D


That's what I was thinking. Probably it's a made up article but why would anybody such a thing

There was quite a long period (I don't know if there still is) when this was going very well with altcoins, especially Monero, which can be exchanged for Bitcoin and the mining pool may even do that automatically.
Maybe this is what he did, but ... I hope that you don't expect them understand all these details...  :)

Honestly speaking, that's the only choice of the police to close this case if they are just following the procedure. There's no why that they can access the wallet of the suspect without doing it by force which is not permissible by the law. Making a fake conclusion will make there job easy and move on.

But one thing I'm sure. The suspect will give some share the officer handling his case once his case dissolved same as your theory above.

This story reminds me of the person who has bitcoin in a wallet worth millions but can not access it and only had two tries left to guess what their password was to this wallet long forgotten. :-[
Wonder what happened to that guy. Did he lock up the wallet with his last two tries?
This criminal didn't forget his password and just used the wallet as a keep-safe device from law enforcement agencies for gaining access to his illicit funds.
I believe it to be the main thing to take from this story.

free under any conditions, I think this kind of crime needs to be done by various methods so that he is not free to roam around and look for victims to be deceived again. So if he didn't say the password, how could he be so easily released? isn't this sort of thing for the police to have a variety of methods for dealing with each different case.

How can police claim that they have seized his coins if they can't access them? Not your keys = not your coins. Having encrypted wallet file means nothing, the criminal could have other copies of it stored elsewhere, and he can have backup seeds or paper wallets or other forms of the private keys. It's even more stupid if the police doesn't even know what are his addresses - in this case the criminal could have moved the coins years ago.

They can't make sure that he can't access his funds, but they can threaten him in case there will be a spending transaction from his address(es). For example, if he moves the coins, he gets into trouble. It's a loss for him, not for the police. Except if he's planning to be gone for good now that he's free.

As I said above, they didn't, but they can track the address. If he moves coins, he can be arrested. The problem is that there are misunderstandings when police comes across with bitcoin. In my country, transacting bitcoins isn't illegal, but neither legal. It's just too complicated.

LOL! If we exclude the fact that this can't happen since there isn't a government that rules all governments, that would be a penalty for the exchanges/mixers that are not on the same country of this occurrence. Not sure, but this is the same reason why VPN business is considered legal. They've built/made their company on a place where laws aren't strict.

"Maybe he doesn't know", the prosecutor says  ;D. Without the password, they won't be opening that over 1700 bitcoins, and why would they want to open it in the first place? They already knew the amount, that is enough, right? It seems they have another plan about it knowing for a fact that the price of bitcoin increased massively over the past month.

2 years imprison isn't really just too long for you to survive on rather than man choses on that consequence rather than on handling out this $60M to the police or government.

This is the beauty of crypto on where no one can force you to give your keys if you don't like to even if they would crack out that hell of the brain of yours to get those is impossible.

This is one of the things on where government do hate most on where decentralization and anonymity do rocks.  8)

Actually what he did does not required arrest because the money belong to him,and no one knows how it generate the money, but the process whereby the money is a government money which the man personally embezzled  it in form of personal money I think it deserved arrest, now understanding these from another perspective using $60 million to purchase bitcoin is am investment that can multiple such money twice in the next two or three years, which it's difficult to find a investing platform that can such put in return such amount of money within such space of time, so from my understanding the man is a wise man by using such amount of finance into cryptocurrency.

Don't they wannta taste truth serum on him? They invented so much medicines back in world war 2, I guess they should have some truth serums among perviton and other things to catch spys and get the truth from them. Before going into debates, don't call me a scifi person and truth serum isn't a fake thing. The idea behind this is to A, make a person so high and careless that he/she won't be able to hide the truth easily or B, it suppresses the higher cortical functions.

Btw this is the biggest positive side of bitcoin and I was always saying that. If something happens, not this case but for example - you are unable to fully cover the lone from bank or etc, they can easily block your account and take all the money. In case of bitcoin, you are the bank, the untouchable owner.

I have read this article about a scammers sentenced to jail and now he is released but the authorities are not able to access the bitcoin because he forgot his password. The fact is that he already completed his jail term and if he is not going to provide the password then there is no way they are going to unlock it and from the article they think that he cannot do anything with the coins since the wallet is in their custody :D.

Why the prosecutor confident saying this word?

If both of them did not know the password, I guess there is no chance to open that wallet and it will belong to the other bitcoin asset that lost and did not have access and stuck forever on the wallet. But who knows, if one of them lied and already know the wallet password and someday there is a huge moving of bitcoin that using mixer service.

The scammer deserved of being jailed and I think the bitcoin that has been scammed also deserves to return for those who had victims.

Even if torture was allowed in the EU, there would be boundaries. For instance, they wouldn't be able to crush his fingers, pull his teeth, or drill holes in his body. Most people can survive mild torture like starvation, light deprivation and similar. I once saw a documentary about Russian prisons and the worst criminals are kept under light in a white, empty cell 24/7, so they can never sleep long and comfortably. 2 years for stealing millions? I'd also keep my mouth shut and count days until release.

He didn’t actually steal that Bitcoin, he just installed some software that mined some coin/s on an unspecified number of computers - and that’s clearly not considered literal theft.


Personally, I think that the penalties for such acts are ridiculously small, and that they actually encourage others to try something similar - because after all, every fraudster goes in the direction of committing a crime thinking that he will never be caught - and if he is caught he knows he will get very a small penalty. For 1700 BTC many would go to prison for 2 years, especially if it is a prison in countries like Germany where the standard is at a fairly high level as well as human rights.

Obviously, the scammer knows the password of that wallet. The reason he is a scammer, you know what I mean? No doubt, the scammer needed to be jailed, he did a crime but if that scammer doesn't say the password, he can't use that wallet even the prosecutor, and can't return the bitcoins in that wallet. Another thing is that if that scammer has a back-up, that is HIS bitcoin.

He must be happy that the arrest and 2y prison stay was in a Western Country. I can imagine the utterly different picture and headlines if this was in a not-so democratic country. "The right" people in the police would have access to the funds in a matter of hours, not years.

His biggest problem with "bad guys" has to have been while in jail. where he can't run and hide .
He's free now , the world is his oyster.

If the  police are anything like the bungling RCMP, we have here in Canada ( Clifford Olsen serial murder case ) they probably have posesion of his hardware wallet ,and think themselves having the BTC frozen.

As long the police doesn't have his private keys, they can't access except the guy. How can they make sure that he can't access? He can just simply go to that website and simply enter his private keys and voila! $60 million dollars is still in his possession! Unless if the police demands him to surrender the private key of that wallet and immediately transfer it, well that's game over for that guy.

That could be a possibility but when the time comes to sell it, the people that will be buying will not be amused that the bitcoin can't be accessed which will not do anything. Hopefully the man can get a backup access to that wallet, that would be the most frustrating that could happen to a convict, getting away from prison and not having any money to use once you are outside knowing that you have a lot of money is really frustrating. But it is unlikely that the guy doesn't know the password, he just needs to lay low and have the heat on him dry out so he can enjoy the money in peace, I think that his prison sentence for embezzlement only made him more sly and craftier, we can only speculate.

It's easy to imagine having a bitcoin wallet and not having the password. The wallet will display the balance but it will not allow access to the private keys.

Maybe that's the case.

If he has the password but no wallet backup than what the police say is true.

If he has a backup and the password I suspect he'll take a flight out to a county that ho extradition policy with Germany and party.

So you are claiming that someone stealing your resources to mine bitcoin using your electricity thereby reducing the life of your electronic equipment cannot be considered as stealing because he did not steal bitcoins from you directly ::). I consider stealing when someone uses my resources without my permission physically or virtually.

The rules for fraud should be strict, if he ever moves the coin he should be arrested for gaming the system.

maybe he is just waiting the right timing here. of course, he will not do any movement from his wallet while he is still within the country. after this couple of years, the police didnt manage to extract from him the password. maybe they already did some torture or any of that sort, but they were not successful. for sure, the police will closely follow his movements as well as the movements of his bitcoin addy.
wont be surprised if one day, he's out of reach...

If the law cannot force him to provide the password then there might not be a law to force him from him, Germany does have its restrictions and you cannot torture in providing the password to unlock the coins once he said he lost the password as his lawyer could provide evidence of investors who lost their coins because they lost their password. One thing is that he will not be able to use the coins, if he uses he will be back in jail for lying to the law.

I believe that this guy is smart enough to keep a backup copy of his wallet, or the recovery seed. It would be stupid not doing so when you have a large amount of bitcoin.

The problem is he cannot move this bitcoin, because if he does, law officers will know that he does have access to the fund and they can arrest him again. Even if he is not arrested when the fund is moved, he will be under tight surveillance and any unusual financial activity of him with be scrutinized. Eventually he must come up with a smart plan to spend his bitcoin. I imagine that he may set up a fake business and act as if his money comes from this business, not from his bitcoin fund.

Well, if they "made sure" that his I'll-gotten wealth is not to be accessed again by anyone, they should've transferred the bitcoins to another wallet, so that even in the smallest chance that the person memorized his wallet address, his private key, there's still no way he's going to get a hold of it ever again. That's the most surefire way to ensure that this guy won't be able to access it again. But knowing the cops, they prolly never thought about it.

I'm sure the German police are very upset that they can't get the 1700 BTC that the fraudster has. I firmly believe the fraudster has other plans
to withdraw the Bitcoin when he is free. So he insisted that he didn't want to reveal the password for the wallet which contained 1700 BTC.
This case is one example of why many governments don't like decentralization, and consider Bitcoin to be widely used for illegal activities.

Pretty smart, eh? I bet the guy has another copy of his wallet stashed in a discreet place that's hidden from plain sight. He could simply redeem that copy, putting cops' efforts in vain. I'm sure that's what he did after he got out of jail. That's the beauty of Bitcoin. If you play your cards right, no one will be able to take away your hard earned money from you.

That is until cops get a court order to force you to reveal the password for the wallet. If that happens, then you're doomed. That's why it's always important to have two types of wallets: a decoy wallet, and a real one hidden on a top secret place. If you get caught, cops will only be able to get the decoy wallet with some very small amount of crypto on it. The rest will be impossible to confiscate if the location of the real wallet is undisclosed. Knowing that cops weren't able to access the guy's funds, I'd say there's a possibility he did one of the things described earlier.

That's why you shouldn't tell people you have any bitcoin.

Bitcoin? Aint that the scam market thing people buy drugs with? I dont know anything about that officer.

I have not written laws that apply in Germany or in the EU - and I must admit that there are many who are more in favor of thieves than those who are victims of such crimes. That is why I wrote that such small sentences are actually an incentive for others to engage in such criminal acts, and not to deter them from them. I would personally give him at least 10 years in prison and a life ban on the use of the Internet, and thus send a clear message to the public that such acts will not be tolerated as a minor offense.

Are they supposed to give him life in jail if he claims he has lost the key? In a free country this is something you can not justify.