Finland decides over US$ 15 million confiscated in bitcoin

After the rescue operation called Tulli where about 1,666 BTC were seized in 2016, Finnish authorities have been developing a plan to auction digital currencies that currently amount to about US$ 15 million in bitcoin. However, they fear that crypto assets will return to hands of criminals.

This was expressed to a local media by the Customs Finance Director, Pekka Pylkkänen, who says: “From our point of view, the problems are specifically related to the risk of money laundering. Cryptocurrency buyers rarely use them for normal ventures.”

With the passage of time the sum of money has increased its value. The merchandise that was initially worth US$ 570 at the time of being confiscated has been revalued to 2,000%, which means that the sum of bitcoins is worth close to US$ 15.5 millions.

While Finnish customs deliberate on how to proceed with confiscated digital assets, Henry Brade – founder of the Prasos cryptocurrency company – believes that the European country’s authority has several options in this scenario, one of which is that the agency will gradually sell the bitcoin in the cryptocurrency market until the sum is used up or you can also sell the total to stock brokers or large investors.

In the same trend, Juri Mattila, a researcher at Etla, the Finnish Institute for Economic Research, said another viable option is to carry out a public auction. He also stressed that “most bitcoin buyers are investors, not criminals” adding that there are currently many legitimate investors who can buy virtual currencies from customs.

K.Villarroel

Source: diariobitcoin