After a recent police investigation, the British authorities seized 295 Bitcoins.
Police earn £ 273,000 from sale of BTC
Surrey Police confiscated a total of 295 Bitcoins in October 2017 following the arrest of a Latvian man named Seregjs Teresko . He was sentenced to nine years in prison for money laundering.
Police authorities then sold the cryptocurrencies for about $ 1.5 million . The price of Bitcoin (BTC) was estimated at around $ 5,000 at the time, but it reached the all-time high of $ 20,000 two months later.
A UK court ruled in favor of the Surrey police last week, stating that it had the right to confiscate the digital currencies held by Teresko. The judge awarded 18.8% of the proceeds, or £ 273,000 to the police authority , which she could use for her operational budget.
UK strengthens fight against cybercrime
The Financial Times report detailed how the police set up their own digital wallets . They would have used a cryptocurrency exchange platform based abroad to liquidate the assets. They were able to proceed with the sale after obtaining the criminal's private key. The news comes at a time when UK law enforcement agencies are increasing their knowledge of the virtual currency industry by improving their method of investigating emerging technology crime . This initiative should facilitate the seizure process.
An amendment to the existing law that would simplify the seizure of Bitcoin was proposed last year by a British research office.
"Local police should follow a training initiative to increase their institutional knowledge of cryptocurrencies," said 8 Policing Research Partnership at the time.What do you think of UK police efforts against crimes involving virtual currencies? Let us know in the comments below.