A British man was convicted of selling deadly weight loss pills, and £15,000 (about $19,350) worth of Monero was “seized” from him by the Cheshire Cyber Crime Unit. Later, the Food Standards Agency sold the tokens for British pounds in what's been described as the first UK Monero cryptocurrency payout.
Monero is one of the largest privacy coins that hides the addresses and transactions of those on its network. Thus, it has become a popular token for people to use when they don’t want their activity traced—legal or otherwise.
That's apparently why Jack Edward Finney used Monero while running his illegal drug scheme. The 28-year-old Brit sold various drugs on the dark web, including viagra and anabolic steroids, but it was the sale of 2,4-Dinitrophenol (DNP) that landed him in trouble.
DNP is a dangerous slimming drug that has been the cause of 33 deaths in the UK. The highly toxic chemical boosts a user's metabolism, according to the BBC, but even just a few tablets could lead to death.
“The Cheshire Cyber Crime Unit conducted the initial seizure of the cryptocurrency,” Detective Sergeant David MacFarlane from Cheshire Police’s Cyber Crime Unit said, in a release. “This posed several challenges due to the particular type of cryptocurrency; however, these were overcome and has resulted in the forfeiture of the funds by the National Food Crime Unit.”
Finney was forced to hand over £23,000, or he would face a further eight months in prison on top of the 28 months he was sentenced to in 2021.
The seizure of the Monero (XMR) tokens was not the result of the police figuring out Finney’s private key and seed phrase, nor did they work with centralized exchanges. Instead, it was transferred to the investigator by Finney due to a confiscation order, with the remainder of his balance covered with cash and the sale of his Suzuki Vitara vehicle.
The XMR was sold by UK officials via an undisclosed “cryptocurrency trading platform” which converted it into British pounds. It has taken nearly three years since Finney was sentenced for this process to take place.
In April, the British police were given greater powers to seize cryptocurrency under Rishi Sunak’s government. Part of this included the ability to “destroy” a crypto asset if “returning it to circulation is not conducive to the public good.” The post goes on to specifically name privacy coins as a prime example. But in this case, the XMR was not “destroyed” (or “burned”), but rather put back into circulation via sale.
“This is the first case where we have converted Monero currency into cash. This shows that criminals cannot hide their money in any cryptocurrencies in the hope it will be safe from the authorities,” said Adrian Foster, Chief Crown Prosecutor. “We will continue to go after him for the remaining amount if he comes into more money.”
However, this would be particularly difficult if Finney indeed receives further funds via his Monero wallet. This is because, unlike with most blockchains, you cannot see transactions on the Monero network. On Ethereum, for example, if you have someone’s wallet address you can see the funds going in and out—but this is not the case on Monero.
Edited by Andrew Hayward