An Irish drug dealer learned the hard way what every bitcoin investor knows: never lose your codes.
Clifton Collins, a former security guard and a beekeeper turned weed grower/dealer, lost $60 million when his landlord cleaned out the house he’d been renting and sent everything to the dump — including Collin’s fishing rod case that hid his Bitcoin codes. Without the codes, the accounts can’t be accessed.
According to the Irish Times, “Collins bought most of the Bitcoin in late 2011 and early 2012 using cash he made growing crops of cannabis. In early 2017 he had just over 6,000 Bitcoin in one account but he feared it may be too easy for a hacker to access. He decided to spread his wealth across 12 new accounts … then printed out the codes for the 12 accounts onto a piece of paper. He hid the paper inside the aluminum cap of his case containing his rod which he kept at his rented home in Farnaught, Cornamona, Co Galway.
It all went south for Collins when he was arrested in 2017 for cannabis possession and sentenced to five years in prison. His house was broken into and, shortly thereafter, his landlord sent his belongings — including the fly fishing case — to the dump.
Dump employees remember seeing fishing gear — but the garbage was soon cleared and sent to either Germany and China to be incinerated.
The Criminal Assets Bureau confiscated the 12 accounts, but can not access them either, without the codes, the Irish Times Reported.
Collins has since come to terms with the loss and “considers it punishment for his own stupidity.”
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