Officials in Sweden are said to have returned $1.3 million in Bitcoin to a convicted drug dealer who accumulated the money through unlawful online sales.
The Swedish Enforcement Authority began auctioning off the 36 Bitcoin that had been gathered at the time of the drug dealer’s imprisonment. Nevertheless, the stolen cryptocurrency’s value has now increased to the point where only 3 Bitcoin were auctioned to match the looted Bitcoin’s fiat worth at the time of the illicit transactions.
As a result, the drug dealer received the remaining 33 Bitcoin, which is currently valued well over $1 million. The attorney believes that this is only the beginning of a series of crypto-related crimes. Prosecutor Tove Kullberg reportedly told Swedish radio that,
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
In June of this year, Stefan Ingves, the governor of Sweden’s central bank, stated that crypto will not be unregulated forever. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may be subject to regulatory investigation in Sweden in the near future.
Asa Linghagen, Sweden’s financial markets minister, said the government is already strengthening its rules when it comes to crypto exchanges, and that money laundering is a very serious issue in the crypto business.
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