German police seized a record amount of bitcoins worth 2 billion euros

31 January 2024 2 minutes Author: Newsman

Movie2k chronicles Germany’s biggest bitcoin heist

German police seized a record amount of bitcoins valued at €2 billion in a case against the operators of pirated streaming platform Movie2k.to. The suspect voluntarily transferred nearly 50,000 bitcoins to the wallet of the federal criminal police, making it the largest cryptocurrency seizure in German history.

As part of an investigation against the operators of the illegal platform Movie2k.to, German police seized a record amount of bitcoins, estimated at 2 billion euros. The suspect, who was one of the operators of the site, voluntarily transferred almost 50,000 bitcoins to the wallet of an officer of the German Federal Criminal Police (BKA). The public prosecutor’s office in Dresden confirmed that the digital assets were “preliminarily protected” in January 2024.

The seizure was the largest in German history and occurred after the suspect voluntarily transferred bitcoins to official BKA wallets.

The investigation focuses on the unauthorized commercial use of copyrighted works for profit and subsequent money laundering. Two people, a 40-year-old German and a 37-year-old Pole, are suspected of involvement in the operation of Movie2k.to, which was one of the largest illegal streaming services in Germany.

The investigation is being conducted by the Dresden General Prosecutor’s Office, the Saxony Criminal Police Office and the local tax office, with the support of the FBI and a Munich-based IT expert company. Additional information will be provided once the investigation is complete.

According to golem.de, the two main operators of Movie2k.to were accused of distributing more than 880,000 illegal copies of movies between 2008 and 2013. This is not the first seizure related to Movie2k: in early 2020, the site’s programmer handed over 25 million euros in bitcoins to the authorities.

Currently, the price of bitcoin is hovering around $43,300, and the total value of bitcoins that have been mined is over $3.3 billion.

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