The Swedish government ended up in an unusual situation by paying nearly $ 1.5 million in bitcoin to a drug dealer they denounced and later imprisoned. Authorities are forced to pay 33 bitcoins to a man after he received bitcoin deemed illegal while behind bars.
Swedish prosecutor’s mistake
Two years ago, a Swedish court found a man guilty of selling drugs online and illegally earning 36 BTC from those sales. But prosecutor tuve Kullberg used the coin’s Fiat value for his first trial.
As a result, the court ruled that a person who illegally acquired bitcoin worth 1.3 million SEK ($100,000) should be arrested. The error prompted the court to pay the drug dealer $ 1.5 million upon his release.
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Two years after the man’s conviction and imprisonment, the price of bitcoin has skyrocketed. The crypto stash was valued at more than $ 1.5 million. To fulfill the court’s initial $ 100,000 ruling, Swedish law enforcement only needed to sell 3 BTC. Thus, 33 BTC of $ 1.5 million remains in the criminal’s wallet, which they are now forced to return. The Swedish government would have avoided the issue altogether had it sold 36 tokens during his imprisonment. Alternatively, if the prosecutor reports the funds in cryptocurrency instead of dollars.
Commentary By Tuve Kullberg
Kullberg acknowledged that it was a mistake for him to choose to report funds in dollars rather than cryptocurrencies. He describes it as” unhappy in many ways.” This led to consequences I could not have predicted at the time. He added: “the lesson to be learned from this is to preserve the value of bitcoin, regardless of the value that bitcoin currently has, the profits from the crime must be 36 bitcoins.”He was following
