Sweden pays 1.3 million euros in Bitcoin to convicted drug dealer – BTC Direct

Who says crime doesn’t pay? (Red: we, please don’t go into crime) The Swedish government is in a crazy situation where they have to pay 1.3 million euros worth of bitcoin to a convicted drug dealer.

At that time

Legally it will be right, but it’s still weird. The Swedish public prosecutor had in court private that at the time of sentencing, the culprit had to take his bitcoin, at the then rate in fiat currency.

Value of 130 thousand euros

Two years ago, the man was convicted by a Swedish court of illegally earning 36 bitcoins through online drug sales. Still, Tove Kullberg, his accuser at the time, had used the bitcoin’s equivalent value in fiat to fund the case. The court therefore ruled that the man should be robbed of his illegally earned bitcoin at the then value of 1.3 million Swedish kronor (130 thousand euros).

Due to increase 33 bitcoin over

In the period following the man’s conviction and imprisonment, his crypto stock was so valued that the Swedish enforcement authority tasked with auctioning those 36 bitcoins only had to sell 3 BTC to meet the court’s demands.

Shortly afterwards, the price of bitcoin exploded. At the beginning of April 2019, one bitcoin was worth about 4,000 euros, today it is about 40,000 euros.

Therefore, there is now a surplus of 33 BTC and these are worth about 1.3 million euros against the current bitcoin price. By law, this number must be returned to the owner. Speaking to Swedish Radio, Kullberg said the way she chose to argue her case was, in retrospect, “unfortunate in many ways.” […] It has led to consequences that I could not have foreseen at the time.’

What have we learned?

Kullberg:

“The lesson to be learned from this is to keep the value in Bitcoin, that the profit from the crime should be 36 Bitcoin, regardless of what value the Bitcoin has at the time.”

Kullberg also stressed that as cryptocurrency becomes more widely adopted, authorities would do well to invest in educating their staff on the details of the industry. ‘The more we increase the level of knowledge within the organization, the fewer mistakes we will make.’ And grass is green.

When the convicted criminal is free again, he no longer has to resume his old profession due to the rising price.

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