Irish drug dealer loses his £46MILLION bitcoin fortune after losing the piece of A4 paper with the access codes
- Clifton Collins, 49, printed the codes on an A4 sheet of paper to remember them
- He then stashed the sheet in the cap of a fishing rod case at home in Galway
- But, after he was jailed, the house was cleared out and rods sent for incineration
- Irish police have frantically searched for the codes but they remain missing
A jailed Irish drug dealer has lost his ill-gotten £46million Bitcoin fortune after the piece of A4 paper he had the access codes on and hid for safekeeping was 'thrown out' by his ex-landlord.
Clifton Collins, 49, had stashed the codes in the aluminium lid of a fishing rod case at his rented home in Farnaught, Cornamona, County Galway.
After he was arrested for having £1,500 worth of cannabis in his car and sentenced to five years in jail, his landlord cleared out the house.
The fishing rod case was sent to be incinerated. The missing codes have not been found.
![Clifton Collins, 49, converted money made from selling cannabis in Dublin to Bitcoin in late 2011 and early 2012 when their value was at around £3. It has rocketed to £7,427.43](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/02/22/08/25051476-8031745-image-a-1_1582360574694.jpg)
Clifton Collins, 49, converted money made from selling cannabis in Dublin to Bitcoin in late 2011 and early 2012 when their value was at around £3. It has rocketed to £7,427.43
Collins has allegedly told the Irish police that the loss is punishment for his own stupidity and that he has come to terms with it, reports The Guardian.
He worked as a security guard and beekeeper before starting to grow cannabis in properties across Ireland in 2005, including the County Galway house.
The money he made from sales in Dublin was then stored in 6,000 Bitcoins between late 2011 and early 2012, when the value hovered at around £3 each. It was stored in accounts with 500 Bitcoins each.
Since then, the value has rocketed, and currently sits at £7,427.43 per coin.
Irish police have been frantically searching for the codes. Officers visited the dump where workers said they remembered seeing discarded fishing gear, but that it had probably now been shipped to Germany or China for destruction.
![The fishing rod case the Bitcoin access codes were stored in was sent to the dump](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/02/22/08/25051478-8031745-image-a-2_1582360578495.jpg)
The fishing rod case the Bitcoin access codes were stored in was sent to the dump
The Irish Criminal Assets Bureau had seized the Bitcoin after applying to take ownership of them as a forfeit under the proceeds of his crime, reports the Irish Independent.
However, they have been unable to access them.
Officers are hoping that advances in technology will eventually enable them to access the accounts.
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