Initially Unseized Cryptos Can be Added as Crime Proceeds Later, Irish Judge Rul

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The ruling involving 2,000 Ethereum (ETH) tokens breaks new legal ground in Ireland.

Justice Carmel Stewart, a judge at Ireland’s High Court, recently ruled that cryptocurrency not seized by the authorities during an initial investigation can be added later as crime proceeds due to the “evolving” nature of the virtual coins. After Monday’s landmark ruling, 2,000 Ethereum (ETH) tokens, which now are worth a total of $233,000 should be given to the government.

The case dates back to November 2014 when Dublin resident Neil Mannion was arrested for selling illegal drugs. Around a year later, Mannion received a six-and-a-half year jail sentence after admitting to the possession of cannabis, amphetamine, and LSD with the aim to sell them through a distribution center in the Irish capital and via darknet channels.

The Criminal Asset Bureau (CAB) also claimed that the defendant’s bank accounts, credit cards, and Bitcoins in an online wallet were proceeds of crime. In February 2016, CAB settled this proceeding, according to an Irish Times newspaper report. During the initial crime investigation, the inspectors also found 2,000 Ethereum addresses on the Mannion’s computer devices, but CAB did not include ETH tokens in the claim as the investigators did not know that Ethereum was a tradable cryptocurrency at that time.

However, in July, the state authorities realized that ETH had a market price, seized the ETH addresses, and brought new proceedings that included the Ethereum tokens as crime proceeds. According to Mannion, the second search and seizure breached his constitutional rights as he had only consented to a CAB search of his computers during the initial investigation.

On Monday, Justice Stewart said that some of Mannion’s claims have merit but there is no violation of his rights as CAB work was initially “undermined by the intricacies of data privacy rights and cryptocurrency exchanges.”

“The creation of cryptocurrencies was a massive economic and technological advancement. Society as a whole is still grappling with the consequences of these developments,” the ruling reads.

“The failure to notice that Ethereum had started trading did not arise out of negligence, but out of a failure to prepare for an eventuality that was, up until that point, unheard of. The Bureau were engaging with economic infrastructures that were themselves still evolving.”

According to the Irish Times, the ruling is one that “broke new legal ground” as it can be used as a legal precedent in future cases.

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