CAB has seized an additional 500 Bitcoin valued at approximately $38 million from a cache tied to convicted cannabis dealer Clifton Collins, according to blockchain records and investigative reports by Bitcoin.com News. The transfer on August 28, 2026, brought the total recovered bitcoin linked to the decade-old case to 2,000 BTC, with a current market value of roughly $155 million.
Blockchain Data Reveals August 2026 Transfer
According to blockchain tracking data identified by btcparser.com and monitored on Mempool.space, the 500 bitcoin moved from a legacy Pay-to-PubKey-Hash (P2PKH) wallet created on January 23, 2016, to a newer Pay-to-Script-Hash (P2SH) address before landing at Coinbase Prime, as shown on Arkham Intelligence. When the wallet was originally formed, bitcoin traded at roughly $382 per coin, valuing the initial stash at approximately $191,217. The recent August transfer marked the first movement of these specific coins in over a decade.
The Origins of the Clifton Collins Seizure
The assets stem from the criminal enterprise of Clifton Collins, a cannabis dealer who was prosecuted by Irish authorities years ago. According to reporting by Bitcoin.com News, Collins initially forfeited about $3 million worth of bitcoin when he was first busted. However, authorities were initially unable to access a much larger pool of 6,000 bitcoin because Collins claimed the seed phrase was written on a piece of paper hidden inside the plastic handle of a fishing rod.
When law enforcement searched a property rented by Collins, the fishing rod was missing, and its location remained unknown. Over the subsequent years, law enforcement agencies—including the CAB and Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre—gradually gained access to portions of the fortune through technical expertise and decryption resources, according to reports in The Irish Times. Neither CAB nor Europol has officially confirmed how the latest 500 bitcoin were accessed, maintaining their standard policy of releasing minimal operational details regarding cryptocurrency recoveries.
Comparison of CAB Bitcoin Recoveries
Prior to the August 2026 transfer, the CAB accessed other tranches of the cryptocurrency, including movements earlier in March and July 2026. With this latest 500 BTC transaction, authorities have successfully seized a cumulative total of 2,000 BTC from the original lost-fishing-rod wallet cluster, leaving the status of the remaining funds unconfirmed by official police sources.
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