{"id":48027,"date":"2021-08-20T16:06:56","date_gmt":"2021-08-20T13:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=48027"},"modified":"2025-09-02T00:12:38","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T21:12:38","slug":"swedens-government-has-returned-bitcoins-worth-more-than-1-5m-to-a-drug-trafficker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/swedens-government-has-returned-bitcoins-worth-more-than-1-5m-to-a-drug-trafficker\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweden&#8217;s government has returned bitcoins worth more than $1.5m to a drug trafficker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Swedish government has returned more than $1.5m in Bitcoin to a drug trafficker after the value of the cryptocurrency rose sharply while he was in prison. This is reported by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/world-news\/2021\/08\/20\/sweden-pays-drug-dealer-1m-seizing-bitcoin\/\">The Telegraph<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Two years ago, law-enforcement authorities seized from the defendant, whose name is not disclosed, 36 BTC valued at 1.3 million Swedish kronor (about $100 000) at the time. Prosecutor Tuve Kullberg justified her position by using the fiat equivalent of the cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n<p>By the time the seized assets reached auction, their value had risen so much that, to satisfy the court order, the bailiffs needed to sell only 3 BTC. The remaining cryptocurrency is to be returned to its rightful owner.<\/p>\n<p>Kullberg described the situation as regrettable and admitted that the approach she chose to argue her case &#8220;was largely unsuccessful.&#8221; She also stressed that as digital assets spread, prosecutors should train staff to handle innovative tools.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;The higher we raise our level of knowledge, the fewer mistakes we will make,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Earlier, Finnish customs announced a tender among brokers for the <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/finlands-customs-launches-tender-among-brokers-to-sell-seized-cryptocurrency\">sale of confiscated cryptocurrency<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Swedish government has returned more than $1.5m in bitcoin to a drug trafficker after the value of the cryptocurrency rose sharply while he was in custody.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1154,1172,1507],"class_list":["post-48027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-crimes","tag-seized-bitcoins","tag-sweden"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"21","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48029,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48027\/revisions\/48029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}