German Authorities Seize Record $2.17 Billion Worth of Bitcoin from Pirate Sites

German police said the seizure was the largest in the country’s history.

According to a Jan. 30 statement from the Saxony state police, German authorities managed to confiscate 50,000 bitcoins worth $2.17 billion from a piracy site in mid-January.

The seizure was related to an ongoing investigation into the unauthorized commercial exploitation of copyrighted works under the Copyright Act and subsequent commercial money laundering. The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and an undisclosed IT company from Munich are cooperating in the investigation.Bitcoin Miner

According to authorities, two unnamed suspects have been identified, including a 40-year-old German man and a 37-year-old Polish man. One of them voluntarily transferred flagship digital assets to an address provided by BKA.

Meanwhile, this marks the largest asset seizure by German police, and authorities have yet to determine how the seized bitcoins will be used.

Notably, this is not the first time German authorities have confiscated bitcoins. In 2022, they confiscated top digital assets worth around €23 million after dismantling the server infrastructure of the illegal dark web marketplace Hydra.

In a similar vein, the U.S. government has also made significant seizures of top cryptocurrencies. In recent years, more than 50,000 BTC, worth $3.6 billion, associated with the defunct dark web market Silk Road were seized from James Zhu.ETChash Miner

The U.S. has also been actively divesting its bitcoin holdings. On January 25, the government revealed plans to sell $130 million in cryptocurrency.

Despite this sell-off activity, data from the Arkham Intelligence platform shows that the U.S. government still holds more than 216,000 units of BTC worth $9.56 billion at press time.