Ireland Seizes 500 More Bitcoin, Total for 2026 Reaches 1,500 BTC

Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) has confirmed the seizure of an additional 500 Bitcoin, worth roughly €27 million (about $30.9 million), in cooperation with Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre. The agency said the latest action brings CAB’s total Bitcoin seizures for 2026 to 1,500 BTC, valued at approximately $92.4 million.

In its update posted Thursday, CAB said Europol provided operational coordination, technical expertise, and decryption support during the investigation. The bureau did not name the wallet owner or provide further details about how the access was obtained.

Key takeaways

• CAB confirmed a new 500 BTC seizure in cooperation with Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre.
• Total CAB Bitcoin seizures in 2026 now stand at 1,500 BTC, valued around $92.4 million.
• Authorities have not publicly linked this latest wallet action to any specific criminal case.
• Separately, public tracking suggests a wallet address associated with Clifton Collins moved 500 BTC on Thursday.

New seizure brings 2026 total to 1,500 BTC

The bureau’s announcement is the latest in a run of Bitcoin-related enforcement activity. CAB said the seized 500 BTC are currently worth about €27 million and emphasized the cross-border support from Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, particularly around technical work and decryption.

For investors and users, the key operational signal is not only the size of the seizure but the pattern of international cooperation—CAB’s reference to Europol support underscores how ongoing cryptocurrency investigations increasingly depend on specialized technical capabilities rather than traditional evidence-gathering alone.

Cab also did not offer any additional comment beyond the confirmation, leaving open questions about the nature of the underlying investigation and whether the seized funds come from the same larger case previously discussed in Irish media.

Earlier wallet access set the stage for another 500 BTC

Months earlier, CAB said it had gained access to and seized a cryptocurrency wallet containing 500 Bitcoin. That earlier wallet was reported by Irish media to have been connected to Clifton Collins, a convicted drug dealer.

According to The Irish Times, the March wallet authorities accessed was one of twelve wallets believed to have held about 6,000 BTC once owned by Collins. The paper containing the private keys was reportedly lost, adding a layer of difficulty to how investigators were able to unlock and move the funds.

While CAB did not confirm a connection between Thursday’s seizure and Collins, the timing matters. Public blockchain observers linked to Collins have pointed to movement from an address associated with him around the same day as CAB’s announcement.

Public tracking: Collins-linked address moved 500 BTC

In coverage tied to the earlier Collins-linked wallet, blockchain explorers and analysts have monitored the remaining balances attributed to those holdings. The article notes that an address associated with Collins reportedly moved 500 Bitcoin to an unknown address on Thursday.

As of Friday, wallets still associated with Collins were reported to hold 4,500 BTC, valued at about $277 million. The figure is based on public tracking rather than an official CAB statement, so readers should treat it as observational data rather than confirmed custody or law-enforcement control.

Still, the sequence is notable: the combination of CAB’s 500 BTC seizure announcement and independent reporting of movement from Collins-associated addresses suggests the criminal wallet landscape remains actively contested long after the first tranche of recovered funds.

What authorities previously said about how Collins stored keys

Collins was arrested in 2017 after police searched his car and found cannabis, according to The Guardian. Prosecutors said he used proceeds from his drug operation to purchase about 6,000 Bitcoin in late 2011 and early 2012, spreading the holdings across twelve wallets.

Authorities and reporting described a key-management strategy that relied on a single physical backup: Collins stored the wallet keys on a sheet of A4 paper, hidden inside the aluminum cap of a fishing rod case at his rental home. After his arrest, the landlord allegedly discarded Collins’ belongings. Collins claimed the fishing rod case had been stolen before the landlord entered the property.

That dispute—and the reported loss of the keys—help explain why access to some of the holdings could have taken time. It also highlights a broader lesson for the ecosystem: even when large balances are held securely on-chain, off-chain key handling and physical storage failures can ultimately determine whether funds remain reachable.

With CAB now confirming another 500 BTC seizure in 2026, the open question for the market is how quickly investigators can continue collapsing the gap between wallets once considered “lost” and the funds that ultimately get moved and frozen. Readers should watch for whether CAB’s next updates clarify the relationship—if any—between Thursday’s seizure and the remaining Collins-associated holdings, as well as how Europol’s technical role evolves in future operations.