Finnish Customs does not want to sell confiscated 1,666 BTC

The Finnish Customs Service is addressing the issue of confiscated BTC worth $15 million. The service fears thatin the event of a sale, they may be in the hands of criminals.

Finnish Customs for severalyears trying to sell a total of 1666 BTC, and in September 2018, even developed a public auction plan for the sale of crypto assets. But officials have concerns that the sale will attract the attention of criminals and may even compromise the agency’s security. In an interview with local media, Customs Director Pekka Pylkkanen said:

“From our point of view, the problems are associated with the risk of money laundering. Cryptocurrency users rarely use them for regular purchases. ”

In 2016, the Finnish Customs Serviceseized €1 million worth of Bitcoin and other assets as part of a raid on the Valhalla darknet market. At that time, BTC was trading around $570, that is, 1666 BTC cost approximately $950,000. At the same time, now the price of BTC is about $9,000, and all the bitcoins available to customs officials — almost $15 million.

Not only the Finnish Customs Service is tryingdecide what to do with the confiscated BTC, which have grown significantly in price. The US government, which has seized hundreds of millions of dollars in BTC over the years, has organized several online auctions to sell them. The last such auction took place this month - bitcoins worth $ 37.7 million were sold at it.

A year ago, an independent auction house, Wilsons Auctions, sold cryptocurrencies worth £ 300,000 seized by the Belgian government in a case of drug trafficking through darknet.

In 2018, the Finnish government bannedCustoms officers selling confiscated BTC on exchanges or trading floors. The agency must store any confiscated digital assets in a cold wallet and sell them exclusively at auction.

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