Cryptocurrency Worth $435 Million Seized by 12 UK Police Forces in Five Years – Regulation Bitcoin News

The U.K. Police have released the amount of cryptocurrency that they have taken in five years as a response to Freedom of Information Requests. London Metropolitan Police took more bitcoins than all other police boroughs.

UK Police Provide Information about Seized Crypto

Twelve of the U.K.’s 43 police forces have seized cryptocurrency worth approximately £322 million ($435 million) in criminal investigations in the last five years, New Scientist reported Thursday, citing Freedom of Information (FOI) requests it submitted.

99.9% of all cryptocurrencies confiscated in the U.K. were Bitcoins. Law enforcement also took ethereum (monero), dash and zcash.

The police force that seized the most cryptocurrencies was the London Metropolitan Police, which seized £294 million in BTC. The Greater Manchester Police seized £25 million. Some police boroughs didn’t respond to our requests.

The Internal Revenue Service, an American tax agency, revealed that the IRS had seized $3.5 billion worth of crypto during fiscal 2021. This represents 93% of all funds seized by the tax agency’s criminal investigation unit during the same time period. This year, the agency plans to take billions more dollars in cryptocurrency.

Let us know your thoughts on the amount of Bitcoin seized in U.K. by police. Comment below.

Kevin Helms

Kevin is a graduate of Austrian Economics. He discovered Bitcoin in 2011, and has been an advocate ever since. His main interests are in Bitcoin security, open source systems, network effects, cryptography, and intersections between economics, cryptography, and Cryptography.