The French government auctioned off millions of euros worth of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin that was seized from hackers in 2019.
The auction was held on behalf of the French Agency for the Recovery and Management of Seized and Confiscated Assets, headed by Eurotech Cyber Security.
The tokens were seized from individuals linked to the GateHub trading platform hack.
They were divided into two sales; the first consisted of 437 lots of between 0.11 and two Bitcoins and the second 41 lots of between five and 20 Bitcoins.
The auction raised around €28 million.
Yves Benaim, the founder of 2B4CH Swiss think tank for currencies, told Euronews the government's decision to sell it now is telling.
“Technically the French ministry is allowed to sell something that has been seized if they think the value might go down," he explained.
"It’s interesting that they are selling it now, betting that the price will go down, that it was just a bubble."
“Bitcoin is now worth about €50,000 each," Benaim added.
"It is interesting that they are starting the auction at 40% to 50% of the market price, so some people will be very interested in buying just to be able to sell straight away.”
The minimum required bid was 42,400 euros ($49,197) in the auction and was announced by the Justice Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia, according to Bloomberg.
Tens of millions of euros worth of bitcoin went up for public sale after the crypto was seized in connection with cybercrimes according to a translated report by Süddeutsche Zeitung, a daily newspaper published in Munich.
Another operation coordinated by INTERPOL codenamed HAECHI-II saw police arrest more than 1,000 individuals and intercept a total of nearly $27 million of illicit funds, underlining the global threat of cyber-enabled financial crime. Far from the common notion of online fraud as a relatively low-level and low-stakes type of criminality, the results of Operation HAECHI-II show that transnational organized crime groups have been using the Internet to extract millions from their victims before funnneling the illicit cash to bank accounts across the globe.
“Online crypto scams like those leveraging malicious apps evolve as quickly as the cultural trends they opportunistically exploit,” said José De Gracia, Assistant Director, Criminal Networks at INTERPOL.
“Sharing information on emerging threats is vital to the ability of police to protect the victims of online financial crime. It also lets police know that no country is alone in this fight. Operation HAECHI-II shows that we can successfully strike back against this threat when we act together.”
Since 2011, Eurotech Cyber Security has successfully investigated over 1,600 cases and have constantly adapted to an ever-changing market whilst becoming one of the world's top cyber investigation resources. Head of Cybersecurity Mark Reading and the team of dedicated investigators and tech experts have a combined 60 years of experience in cybersecurity and digital location strategies. Eurotech Cyber Security specializes in digital forensics and digital asset crime investigations.
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