Police seize £322m of cryptocurrency in last five years

However, the true amount is likely to be significantly higher as only 12 police forces responded to the Freedom of Information (FoI) request from New Scientist magazine. In addition the National Crime Agency, which is exempt from FoI legislation, did not reveal the amount of cryptocurrency it has seized.

Cryptocurrency-linked crime surged to a record high during 2021, with illegal addresses receiving more than £10 billion in digital currencies, up 79 per cent from £5.7 billion in 2020.

A recent Europol report found that criminal gangs were increasingly turning to cryotocurrencies to launder money and that the trend had been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Detective Chief Inspector Joseph Harrop of the economic crime unit at Greater Manchester Police was quoted as saying that the adoption of cryptocurrencies by criminals was unexpectedly fast, and forces are scrambling to gain new skills to deal with cases and seize funds.

The high levels of encryption deployed by all cryptocurrencies mean that even when a digital ‘wallet’ is found, it might prove to be impenetrable without an encryption key that suspects are unlikely to reveal.

However, he revealed that incidents in which officers are able to uncover a password through more conventional means occur more often than might be expected. “As daft as it sounds, sometimes people do leave golden nuggets or strong evidence where they might literally have the stuff that we need written down on a piece of paper,” he said.

Despite the impressive sums collected, Jake Moore, the former head of digital forensics at Dorset Police and now global cybersecurity adviser at internet security company ESET, told the magazine that many investigations failed to recover any funds.

“Police forces have come so far in digital investigations yet the final step of confiscation is simply too difficult to examine in many situations,” he said. “The key design of cryptocurrencies is to keep them secure from interception from anyone, whether that be a threat actor or law enforcement, plus they were not intended to have a back door for any reason.

“This naturally causes a problem for police forces wanting to seize through the original procedures they are all used to with old fashioned finances. In some cases, criminals may be locked up without giving away access to their funds only to see huge returns on their release from jail.

“Digital investigations still remain in their infant phase and require far more resources to improve fighting this growing criminality. Cybercriminals are very aware of the well documented evasion tactics available, but policing is improving at a rate that will slowly catch up in time.”

Mr Moore suggested that deploying better surveillance techniques on known suspects, increasing intelligence and improving the profiling on those who are thought to be involved will help build stronger evidence to recover and seize funds.