Irish drug dealer’s lost wallet moves $39.56M in Bitcoin

A Bitcoin wallet linked to convicted Irish drug dealer Clifton Collins has transferred 500 BTC worth about $39.56 million to Coinbase Prime after the coins were reportedly inaccessible because their private keys had been lost.

Summary

• 500 BTC, worth approximately $39.56 million, was sent to Coinbase Prime.
• The transfer came from a group of wallets linked to Clifton Collins' 6,000 BTC stash.
• Irish authorities had recovered 1,500 BTC from the wallet group by July.
• A Coinbase Prime deposit does not confirm that the transferred Bitcoin has been sold.

Collins-linked Bitcoin has moved to Coinbase Prime

Lookonchain said in an Aug. 28 X post that Bitcoin connected to Collins was "moving again," with 500 BTC reaching Coinbase Prime. The blockchain tracker valued the transaction at $39.56 million when it reported the transfer.

At the stated value, each Bitcoin was worth about $79,120. Lookonchain associated the transfer with a group of wallets that once held approximately 6,000 BTC and were thought to be inaccessible after their private keys disappeared.

The blockchain data identifies movements between labeled addresses, but Lookonchain did not provide evidence that Collins personally controlled the sending wallet or directed the transaction. Irish authorities had already gained access to several wallets in the same group, making it possible that the latest activity involved seized assets under official control.

No statement from Ireland's Criminal Assets Bureau, An Garda Síochána or Europol accompanied the latest transaction at the time of Lookonchain's report. Without an official notice, the purpose of the transfer and the party that authorized it remain unconfirmed.

How authorities recovered the lost Bitcoin

Collins acquired about 6,000 BTC in late 2011 and early 2012 with proceeds from cannabis sales, according to earlier reports cited by Irish authorities and blockchain intelligence firms. Bitcoin traded at around $5 during parts of that period, putting his estimated purchase cost near $30,000 before the holdings later rose to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Rather than keeping the balance in one place, Collins reportedly divided the coins among 12 wallets containing roughly 500 BTC each. He printed the private keys on a sheet of paper and concealed it inside the aluminum cap of a fishing rod case stored at a rented property in County Galway.

Following his arrest in 2017, the property was cleared, and the fishing equipment was believed to have been taken to a waste facility. With the paper no longer available, the Bitcoin appeared unreachable even after the assets became subject to seizure proceedings.

Access began returning in March 2026, when Irish authorities announced that they had opened one of the wallets with help from Europol's European Cybercrime Centre. As reported in March by crypto.news, the recovered wallet held 500 BTC and sent the coins to Coinbase Prime after years without activity.

Ireland's Criminal Assets Bureau said Europol provided "highly complex technical expertise and decryption resources" for the operation. Neither agency disclosed the method used to open the wallet, leaving the technical details of the recovery outside the public record.

A second 500 BTC wallet became accessible by May, increasing the amount recovered from the Collins-linked group to 1,000 BTC. Earlier coverage of the seizure reported that the second batch followed a different route, reaching a Binance deposit address linked by Arkham Intelligence to market maker Wintermute rather than Coinbase Prime.

Previous recoveries reached 1,500 BTC

By early July, the Criminal Assets Bureau had secured another wallet with support from Europol, taking the known recovery to 1,500 BTC. A third 500 BTC recovery reduced the amount still associated with dormant addresses to about 4,500 BTC at the time.

The bureau said its July operation again involved the European Cybercrime Centre. Europol hosted operational meetings in The Hague and supplied technical and decryption support, according to the agency's statement cited in the earlier report.

Lookonchain separately observed a 500 BTC deposit to Coinbase Prime around the same period, valuing that transaction at approximately $30.85 million. The Aug. 28 transfer carried the same number of coins but a higher dollar value because Bitcoin was trading at a higher price.

While the latest movement may represent access to another wallet, neither Lookonchain nor an Irish agency confirmed that authorities had completed a fourth 500 BTC recovery. Counting it as an additional seizure before an official statement would therefore go beyond the available evidence.

The original structure of 12 wallets, each holding about 500 BTC, explains why the observed transactions have repeatedly appeared in equal-sized batches. Public blockchain labels can connect addresses with known entities, though such labels do not always identify the person or agency controlling the private keys at the time of a transfer.

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