The Swedish government has ended up paying out around $1.5 million worth of Bitcoin to a convicted drug dealer.
The man was convicted in a Swedish court for having illegally earned 36 Bitcoin through online drug sales. Yet his prosecutor at the time, had used the Bitcoin’s equivalent value in fiat to make her case. The court, therefore, judged that the man should be stripped of his illicitly earned Bitcoin at its then-value of 1.3 million Swedish kronor.
In the period following the man’s imprisonment, his crypto stash had appreciated to such an extent that the Swedish Enforcement Authority, tasked with auctioning off the 36 BTC, needed to sell off just 3 BTC to satisfy the court’s demands.
That now leaves 33 BTC, worth $1.5 million, which must lawfully be returned to its owner. Crypto currencies – whether due to their volatility or technical design – continue to challenge legal authorities and procedures worldwide.
In the United Kingdom, a government-sanctioned task force recently proposed a dispute resolution framework that would help standardize the means of dealing with smart contract disputes. Due to the non-recognition of Bitcoin as legal tender or its surrogate, a Russian court last year ruled against restituting stolen crypto to the victim of a major crime.
