Cryptocurrency
Bitcoins worth two billion euros handed over to BKA
According to the BKA, 50,000 Bitcoins worth around two billion euros have been seized in Saxony. photo
© Fernando Gutierrez-Juarez/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa/Archive
This is the most extensive backup of Bitcoins in Germany to date. The Federal Criminal Police Office suspects that the proceeds could come from income from a pirated copy portal.
The Federal Republic will thus become one of the largest holders of Bitcoins in Germany. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the USA is at the top of the list of countries that hold Bitcoins, with 200,000 Bitcoins confiscated from cybercriminals.
Officials are investigating the pirated copy portal
The investigation in Saxony is directed against a 40 and a 37 year old man. According to the LKA, it is suspected that the men operated a leading German pirated copy portal until the end of May 2013. They are said to have purchased Bitcoins with the proceeds.
The portal is the illegal streaming portal movie2k.to. In a statement about the case from 2020, the investigators mentioned the name of the platform. According to information from the Attorney General’s Office at the time, around 880,000 pirated copies of films and series were published on the portal. In 2013 movie2k.to was shut down.
Two years earlier, the public prosecutor’s office had already struck a blow against the film portal kino.to, which was widely used at the time. Its masterminds were sentenced to prison for mass copyright infringements. The operators of the offshoot kinox.to were also prosecuted.
Most comprehensive Bitcoin security in Germany
According to the LKA, the current security of Bitcoins by law enforcement authorities is the most extensive in the Federal Republic to date. One of the men transferred the Bitcoins to a so-called wallet – an account for the virtual currency – of the BKA.
According to the spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office in Dresden, Patrick Pintaske, no charges have yet been brought against the men. “If an indictment is filed, the investigation process is complete,” Pintaske said. Further background information on the case would then be known at the latest at the beginning of the possible trial against the two men.
The investigations by the Dresden Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Saxony State Criminal Police Office and the Leipzig Tax Office’s tax investigation department were supported by the BKA, the US Federal Police FBI and a Munich IT expert company, it said.
Saxony’s Justice Minister Katja Meier (Greens) spoke of a “remarkable success”, which was primarily the result of the persistence of the Saxony Integrated Investigation Unit (INES) of the Public Prosecutor General’s Office. “It underlines their professionalism and performance.”
In order to combat structural and serious cases of situational corruption, Saxony set up its own investigation unit called Ines in 2004, which is also investigating this case. Since 2009, the group has also been involved in the prosecution of high-profile and particularly important investigations into serious or organized crime. In addition to public prosecutors, the group also includes a specialist in the evaluation of financial and banking matters.