The most recent case from Australia becomes another example of how Bitcoin (BTC) transactions can be traced and illicit funds forfeited by the police.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said that its Criminal Assets Confiscation Taskforce (CACT) has managed to secure the forfeiture of almost 25 BTC ($2.6 million), alongside a Queensland waterfront mansion and a “luxury car.”
However, the CACT investigation began back in 2018, when Luxembourg law enforcement contacted the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre regarding BTC transactions linked to a Queensland man who was previously convicted of hacking a gaming company in the US.
According to the AFP, this investigation helped identify links between the man and the theft of 950 BTC from an unspecified French crypto exchange in 2013.
That year, the France-based Bitcoin Central exchange, now Paymium, suffered a hack, forcing the platform to shut down before returning to the market. (Last week, Paymium was at the center of another cryptoasset-related attempted kidnapping case in France.)
Back in Australia, the AFP said that while no criminal charges were laid, the law allows the CACT to restrain suspected proceeds of crime, regardless of whether there is a related criminal prosecution.
"The Proceeds of Crime Act provides law enforcement agencies with unique powers to restrain and forfeit instruments and proceeds of crime,” AFP Commander Jason Kennedy was quoted as saying in the announcement.
However, it took almost two years from when the CACT obtained restraining orders over the home, a 2019 black Mercedes-Benz sedan, and the BTC until the taskforce applied to the court to have them forfeited.
Law enforcement said they’ll sell the seized assets, and the proceeds will be used to support "crime prevention and law enforcement-related measures."
In total, since July 2019, the CACT said it has restrained more than AUD 1.2 billion in criminal assets, including houses, cars, yachts, cryptocurrency, fine art, and luxury goods.
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