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Symbolic Bitcoin coin: The most extensive seizure in the Federal Republic to date

Photo: Benoit Tessier / REUTERS

As part of investigations, 50,000 Bitcoins have been temporarily secured in Saxony. At Tuesday's price they would be worth around two billion euros, a spokesman for the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) confirmed to the German Press Agency. Accordingly, one of the suspects in the investigation voluntarily transferred the virtual currency to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA).

The investigation was directed against a 40 and a 37 year old man. According to the LKA, it is suspected that the two co-operated a "leading German" portal for illegal copies until the end of May 2013. They are said to have purchased Bitcoins with the proceeds. To be more precise, there is “suspicion of the unauthorized commercial exploitation of copyrighted works in accordance with the Copyright Act and the subsequent commercial money laundering.”

The portal is also known: it is movie2k.to. Between autumn 2008 and May 2013, more than 880,000 illegal copies of films and TV series are said to have been distributed there. As early as 2020, the site's programmer, who had been in custody since 2019, handed over Bitcoins worth 25 million euros to the authorities as "compensation for damages." The announcement from the Dresden Public Prosecutor's Office at the time mentioned additional suspects who had not yet been caught.

The current investigations by the Dresden Public Prosecutor's Office, the Saxony State Criminal Police Office and the Leipzig Tax Office's tax investigation department were supported by the BKA, the US Federal Police FBI and a Munich IT expert company, it said. According to the LKA spokesman, no charges have been filed so far.

According to the LKA, this security of Bitcoins by law enforcement authorities is the most extensive in the Federal Republic to date. One of the men transferred the Bitcoins to a so-called wallet - an account for the cryptocurrency - of the BKA. It was said that a final decision had not yet been made about the utilization of the Bitcoins.

pbe/dpa