Not your keys, not your coins… even for the state
Clifton Collins, an Irishman convicted of cultivating and selling cannabis on a large scale, purchased approximately 6,000 BTC between 2011 and 2012 using illicit funds. He divided the holdings across 12 wallets, with 500 BTC in each, and hid the printed private keys inside the cap of a fishing rod case.
He was arrested in 2017. While he was in prison, his landlord threw all his belongings into a landfill—and the keys vanished. For nearly 10 years, the wallets remained dormant and were labeled "Clifton Collins: Lost Keys" on Arkham Intelligence.
Yesterday, March 24, 2026, Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) (with technical support from Europol )successfully gained access to one of the 12 wallets. They moved the 500 BTC and deposited the funds into Coinbase Prime.
This was not achieved through a brute-force attack on the seed phrase (which is practically impossible), but likely thanks to an encrypted backup or advanced forensic techniques that authorities had possessed since the initial seizure.
There remain 5,500 BTC (valued at over $390 million) across the remaining wallets. Authorities are confident they will be able to recover the rest using the same technique.
#grownostr #freedom #bitcoin
