12 British police forces seized $435 million worth of cryptocurrency in five years – Regulate Bitcoin News

British police revealed how many cryptocurrencies they have seized in response to freedom of information requests in the past five years. The London Metropolitan Police has seized more bitcoins than other police stations.

British police reveal information about seized cryptocurrency

The new scientist quoted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to report that in the past five years, 12 of the 43 police forces in the UK have seized approximately £322 million (US$435 million) in crypto during criminal investigations. currency.

Bitcoin accounted for 99.9% of the cryptocurrencies seized in the UK. However, the publication stated that law enforcement agencies also seized Ethereum, Monero, Dash, and zcash.

The police force that seized the most cryptocurrency was the Metropolitan Police of London, which seized 294 million pounds of cryptocurrency. BitcoinThe Greater Manchester Police seized 25 million pounds. Some police districts did not respond to these requests.

At the same time, the U.S. tax authorities, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), disclose In November of last year, $3.5 billion in cryptocurrency was confiscated in the 2021 fiscal year. This accounted for 93% of all funds confiscated by the criminal investigation department of the tax agency during the same period. The agency expects to seize another billions of dollars in cryptocurrency this year.

What do you think of the number of bitcoins seized by the British police? Please let us know in the comments section below.

Kevin Helms

As a student of Austrian economics, Kevin discovered Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open source systems, network effects, and the intersection of economics and cryptography.