PANews reported on January 10, according to Cryptonews, that Russia has begun selling the bitcoins confiscated during its investigation of the Infraud hacker organization in 2023. This move indicates that Moscow hopes to exchange more than 1,000 bitcoins for fiat currency. The Russian state news agency TASS confirmed this development and stated that Moscow will first sell bitcoins confiscated from former Russian Investigative Committee investigator Marat Tambiev, worth nearly $10 million.
Last year, Tambiev was convicted of receiving bribes from a hacker organization. Prosecutors found hundreds of bitcoins on his computer and storage devices. The former investigator was sentenced for receiving 1,032.1 bitcoins from the organization and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. However, the efforts of the bailiffs to liquidate all 1,032.1 bitcoins became complicated due to legal obstacles. Tambiev appeared to have divided these bitcoins into several smaller amounts. This means that the bailiffs must submit separate court rulings to allow Moscow to acquire these bitcoins. Nevertheless, the bailiffs have successfully persuaded the court to allow them to sell the first batch of bitcoins. They stated that Tambiev stored these bitcoins in a Ledger Nano X hardware wallet. TASS quoted sources as saying that prosecutors also hope to sell another batch of bitcoins worth “millions of rubles,” and they also hope to sell “several properties in the Moscow region” and a “Honda motorcycle.”
