By Solomon Odunayo
A drug dealer has reportedly lost the codes to access the wallet to his accrued €53.6 million in Bitcoin (BTC) after hiding them with his fishing rod. The fishing rod is nowhere to be found at press time.
However, the 12 wallets containing the sum of 6000 BTC have been confiscated by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB), but access codes to the wealth have gone missing. This latest incident has been recognized as the toughest in Cab’s 25-year history
According to Garda officers who stressed the possibility of accessing the whopping sum of funds someday, the advancement in technology would enable access to the wallet without the need for the missing codes.
About the Victim Clifton Collins
The 49-year old Clifton Collins is a native of Crumlin, Dublin. He acquired most of the locked-in Bitcoin (BTC) in 2011 and early 2012 with the proceeds from the cannabis he sold.
Obviously, he acquired the asset when Bitcoin was trading below $100. But the price of BTC has since increased. As the report has it, Collins purchased a two-seater gyroplane with some of the money.
Going by the report, Collins decided to spread the 6,000 BTC across 12 new wallets in 2017. He took this measure to avoid being hacked, which could result in the loss of all the Bitcoin.
He then printed all the codes for the 12 wallets on an A4 paper. Afterward, he decided to hide the paper inside the aluminum cap of the case containing his rod. This was kept in his rented apartment before he was arrested with cannabis herbs in 2017 in Co Wicklow, and was subsequently jailed for 5 years.
When Collins was away, there was a break-in at the house. The house was as well cleared at the order of the landlord. In the process, Collin’s items ended in a dump at Co Galway.
According to a witness at the dump, the discarded fishing gear was sighted at the time of the incident. But all efforts to trace the fishing rod in order to recover the Bitcoin wallet codes proved abortive.