Dutch Newspaper: Public Prosecutors Can Confiscate Bitcoins, At Least Legally
It looks as if it’s already time to update Monday’s assessment of the Netherlands as one of Europe’s Bitcoin centers. According to Dutch newspaper Trouw [NL and paywall], the country’s Openbaar Ministerie, or public prosecution office, can take a suspect’s digital currency and put it in a new wallet as part of an investigation. “Once the bitcoins have been transferred to the justice ministry they are immediately cashed in. So far several hundred pieces of the virtual currency have been confiscated, worth several hundred thousand euros.”
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A criminal justice service based in the Netherlands has been granted the power to confiscate digital currency holdings. As originally reported by Dutch newspaper Trouw, the Openbaar Ministerie, a national public prosecution service within the judiciary, now has the legal ability to seize the contents of bitcoin wallets from suspected or convicted criminals. It can also sell acquired bitcoins for fiat currencies soon after they are confiscated. According to DutchNews, citing original reports, the Openbaar Ministerie has already used this power to sell several hundred thousand euros worth of....
It is being reported by DutchNews.nl (via Trouw) that the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (also known as Openbaar Ministerie) now has the authority to seize virtual currencies like bitcoin from criminals and hold it in their own wallets. They can also take the digital currency belonging to a suspect as part of an ongoing investigation. Of course, there are the 'bad guys' who think bitcoin and digital currencies are a great way to store money because these transactions can be difficult to trace, but that's apparently not the case here. Trouw (paywall) states that while it's legally more....
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