German police in Saxony have seized a record-breaking 50,000 Bitcoins, valued at over $2.1 billion, from the former operator of the pirate streaming site movie2k.to. The platform, which operated in a legal gray area from 2008 to 2013, provided links for users to stream or download movies and TV shows but did not host copyrighted material. Facing legal challenges and ISP-level blocks, movie2k.to eventually went offline in 2013. The police’s Bitcoin confiscation, the largest in Germany to date, followed a voluntary deposit by one of the identified operators of the platform.
The investigation into the operators behind movie2k.to continued, with German authorities collaborating with FBI experts. Two suspects, a 40-year-old German and a 37-year-old Polish individual, were eventually identified. The confiscated Bitcoins are believed to be proceeds from the platform’s operation, including advertising revenue and membership subscriptions. The operators began converting fiat money into Bitcoin in mid-2012, likely as a strategic move due to the perceived difficulty in tracing and confiscating cryptocurrency. The voluntary transfer of the seized Bitcoins to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) by one of the suspects marks a significant development in the legal actions against large-scale piracy operations.
The 50,000 Bitcoins were provisionally secured in mid-January 2024, making it the most extensive Bitcoin seizure by German law enforcement authorities. The accused individual voluntarily transferred the cryptocurrency to wallets provided by the BKA. The final decision on the utilization of this substantial amount is pending. Notably, one of the suspects is also linked to ‘mega-downloads.net,’ an investigation that the Hanover police have been pursuing since 2009, indicating broader connections to online piracy.
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