German prosecutors have confiscated more than 50 million euros ($60 million) worth of bitcoins from a scammer. There was only one problem: they couldn’t unlock the money because he wouldn’t give them the password.
A prosecutor in the Bavarian town of Kempten said the man, who was sentenced to prison and has since been serving his sentence, had remained silent as police made repeated efforts to crack the password to access more than 1,700 bitcoins.
“We asked him, but he didn’t say,” prosecutor Sebastian Murer told Reuters on Friday, “Maybe he doesn’t know.”
Bitcoins are stored on software known as digital wallets, which are secured by encryption. Passwords are used as decryption keys to open the wallets and access bitcoins. When the password is lost, the user cannot open the wallet.
The fraudster had been sentenced to more than two years in prison for secretly installing software on other computers and using their power to “mine” or produce bitcoins.
In the Time he’s been behind bars, the value of his stash of bitcoins has risen dramatically. Over the past year, the price of bitcoin has soared, hitting an all-time high of $42,000 in January. It traded at $37,577 on Friday, according to cryptocurrency and blockchain website Coindesk.
However, prosecutors have ensured that the man does not have access to the huge sum.
Also, 1 USD = 0.8349 EUR.
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