The Lithuanian authorities raised millions of euros from the sale of cryptocurrency confiscated from criminals. This is the first time Lithuania sells seized digital assets.

For the first time, the Lithuanian Tax Department sold confiscated cryptocurrencies. The Lithuanian authorities managed to sell the seized coins for 6.4 million euros. According to local news source Delfi, the state tax office completed the sale of the confiscated bitcoins, ETH and Monero in one day.

“The whole process for the tax administrator was new, from confiscation of seized cryptocurrency to its sale,” said Irina Gavrilova, a representative of the STI.

The proceeds were sent to the state budget of Lithuania.

The tax office reportedly took possession of the digital assets in February. No details were provided as to why the cryptocurrencies were seized.

In July 2020, it was reported that employees of the Cybercrime Division of the Office for Combating Economic Crimes (EECO) of the neighboring Baltic republic, Latvia, prevented the activities of an organized group of cybercriminals that operated from early 2015 to early 2020. They bought personal data of users of well-known sites and with their help got access to the data of electronic payment instruments of their victims. Fraudsters mainly laundered money in the territory of Latvia, buying movable and immovable property, making investments in gold and cryptocurrency. As part of the searches, 110,000 euros were seized in cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, XRP and USDT), as well as cash euros and dollars, cars and real estate.