German Law Enforcement Transfers $425M in Bitcoin From Seized Funds

Onchain data reveals that an entity likely tied to Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) transferred 6,500 bitcoin, valued at approximately $425 million, on June 19. Arkham Intelligence identified the address on Jan. 31 through its onchain monitoring systems.

German Authorities Transfer Seized Bitcoin

About four months ago, Arkham Intelligence announced on the social media platform X that it had flagged an address allegedly belonging to the BKA. “The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) seized almost 50,000 BTC ($2.12B) from the operators of Movie2k.to, a film piracy website that was active in 2013,” Arkham stated in January.

Arkham added:

The BKA received the bitcoin in mid-January after a ‘voluntary transfer’ from the suspects.

In addition to the 6,500 BTC moved on June 19, the wallet also transferred some funds to another unknown wallet, which then sent several batches of 500 BTC to exchanges such as Bitstamp and Kraken. As of 12 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, the BKA wallet still holds 47,859 BTC, worth more than $3 billion.

In recent years, governments, including the U.S., have increasingly engaged directly with centralized crypto exchanges rather than using the auction process. This shift means that liquidity is more likely to enter the open market more quickly than if it were sold to private buyers.

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