Ireland Moves $38M in Bitcoin Tied to Drug Dealer’s Lost Fishing Rod

Ireland’s CAB Moves Another 500 $BTC From Decade-Old Wallet

On Friday, Aug. 28, 2026, a stash of 500 $BTC moved from a wallet first created on Jan. 23, 2016. The 500 $BTC worth $38 million transferred from a legacy P2PKH (Pay-to-PubKey-Hash) wallet to a newer P2SH (Pay-to-Script-Hash) address. The movement was discovered by btcparser.com.

It was the first time these coins moved in over a decade, and at that time, bitcoin’s price was around $382 per coin. That means the cache of 500 was only worth $191,217 in contrast to today’s $38 million.

The Missing Fishing Rod and the Mystery of Collins’ Seed Phrase

On Arkham Intelligence, the funds are flagged with the name “Clifton Collins.” Bitcoin.com News reporter Kevin Helms first reported on Collins close to six years ago on Jan. 4, 2021. Collins was a cannabis dealer who got busted, and he forfeited around $3 million worth of $BTC to Irish authorities. However, Helms also noted that CAB could not access 6,000 $BTC that belonged to Collins. According to Collins, the seed phrase was written on paper hidden inside a fishing rod.

CAB and Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre have never officially stated that they had found the fishing rod despite the funds they have seized so far, over long periods of time. The last time CAB moved Collins’ $BTC was during the first week of July; the time before that was in March.