Irish Police and Europol Access Bitcoin Wallet Linked to Drug Dealer After 9 Years

TLDR

• Irish police and Europol cracked a Bitcoin wallet dormant for nearly 10 years
• 500 BTC worth ~$35 million was moved to Coinbase on March 24, 2026
• The wallet belonged to convicted cannabis grower Clifton Collins, who hid private keys in a fishing rod case
• The keys were thought lost after Collins’ belongings were sent to a landfill following his 2017 arrest
• Investigators believe the same method can unlock the remaining 11 wallets worth over €330 million

Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) and Europol have successfully accessed a Bitcoin wallet that had been dormant for nearly a decade. The 500 BTC inside, worth around $35 million, was moved on-chain on March 24 and transferred into Coinbase.

The wallet belonged to Clifton Collins, a Dublin man convicted of running cannabis cultivation operations across multiple Irish counties for over a decade. He worked as a security guard and beekeeper before turning to drug production.

Collins bought 6,000 Bitcoin between 2011 and 2012, when prices were still in single digits. He used cannabis proceeds to fund the purchases.

He split the 6,000 BTC equally across 12 wallets, with 500 BTC in each. He printed the private keys on a single sheet of paper and hid them inside a fishing rod case at his rented home in Galway.

Collins was arrested in 2017 after police found cannabis during a routine traffic stop. His landlord then cleared the property and sent his belongings to a landfill.

The fishing rod case — and the only copy of the private keys — was almost certainly destroyed. Collins later suggested a break-in at the property may also have been a factor.

An Irish High Court ordered the Bitcoin confiscated in 2020. At that point the 6,000 BTC was worth around €53 million. It is now worth approximately €360 million.

Despite the court order, CAB had no way to access the funds without the private keys. Both authorities and Collins believed the Bitcoin was gone for good.

How Investigators Got In

One theory is that Collins stored his keys in an encrypted file protected by a weak password, which investigators may have broken through brute force.

Another possibility is that Collins used a flawed tool to generate all 12 key pairs. A weak random number generator could produce predictable keys, allowing investigators to reconstruct them.

Investigators are reportedly confident the same technique can be applied to the remaining 11 wallets.

What Remains Locked

Collins currently still holds 5,500 Bitcoin, worth around $389 million according to Arkham data.

If CAB can unlock all remaining wallets using the same method, the full 6,000 BTC recovery would be the largest single asset seizure in the bureau’s history.

The 500 BTC moved on March 24 marks the first confirmed access to any of Collins’ wallets since his arrest nine years ago.

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