PANews reported on October 9 that according to Decrypt, the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) holds Bitcoin seized from a drug dealer in 2019, but has been unable to access these Bitcoins, although their value has soared to 345 million euros (378 million U.S. dollars). In 2020, the Irish High Court seized these Bitcoins from Clifton Collins after ruling that these Bitcoins were the product of criminal activities. At the time, they were worth about 56 million U.S. dollars. After the police found a marijuana cultivation site at Collins' home, Collins was ordered to hand over the Bitcoins to the Criminal Assets Bureau under the Proceeds of Crime Act, and a freezing order was issued to prevent them from being transferred.

But according to a recent report in The Irish Times, the Criminal Assets Bureau has been unable to access Bitcoin stored in 12 wallets for the past four years, during which time the price of Bitcoin has risen from about $9,000 to its current level of over $62,000. Collins began investing in Bitcoin in 2011 using profits from his drug business when the currency was trading between $0.30 and $29, closing at $4.72 at the end of 2011. He claims to have hidden the document containing his Bitcoin wallet seed phrase in a fishing rod box at a rented house in County Galway. Collins claims the box was lost after his home was burglarized, but the document may have been lost during the cleanup of the house after his arrest.

Among the assets seized from Collins were 89 bitcoins and “a fishing boat, a gyroplane, metal detectors, electric bicycles and various motor vehicles,” according to the Criminal Assets Bureau’s annual report, for a total of €1.2 million ($1.3 million).