What does the police do if they seize bitcoin from criminals?

[Kabul]

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.

[Eugenar]

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.

[MCobian]

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.

[AniviaBtc]

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.

[Oasisman]

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

They usually seize it if they can, and after a while organize an auction. If the said BTC has been proven to be used in criminal activity, there's a high chance they'll seize it.

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. 

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.

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.

[Scripture]

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.

[7788bitcoin]

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.

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.

[The cure]

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.

[Findingnemo]

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!!!).

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.

[Nhor1011]

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!!!).

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.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

There is no law that says "Police can then take his private keys and move his coins to a government's address".

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.

[btc78]

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!!!).

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.

[Heart18]

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.

[teosanru]

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!!!).

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.

[traderethereum]

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.

[thesmallgod]

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

[Ucy]

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.

[Rengga Jati]

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).

The U.S. Justice Department has claimed the proceeds from the sale of 144,336 bitcoins, valued at just over $48 million, that it obtained after shutting down the notorious online drug market Silk Road in 2013.

Those $48 millions are now capital of the government.

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.

[Harlot]

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

The US government lost $1.7 billion by selling Bitcoin too early

The United States is likely to have missed out on around $1.7 billion by auctioning off seized Bitcoin $BTC way too soon.

Using back-dated market rates, cryptocurrency enthusiast Jameson Lopp built a handy portal to estimate the amount of money those sales have generated since 2014.

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.

[pixie85]

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.