United Kingdom prosecutors allege an officer working for the country’s National Crime Agency (NCA) stole 50 Bitcoin (BTC) back in 2017.
The Crown Prosecution Services authorized Merseyside Police to charge NCA officer Paul Chowles with 11 counts of concealing, disguising, or converting criminal property, three counts of acquiring, using or possessing converting criminal property and a single count of theft.
The 50 BTC was priced at £60,000 ($77,658) back in 2017 and is worth £3.26 million ($4.2 million) at time of writing.
Chowles, 42, is set to appear at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court on April 25th.
The officer’s charges materialized less than a year after new UK legislation granted additional crypto-related powers to the NCA and police.
The expanded powers enable UK authorities to seize crypto from “sophisticated criminals” who remain anonymous or are based overseas. The police are also empowered to seize physical items related to crypto investigations, like flash drives and written passwords.
Additionally, UK police are now allowed to destroy a crypto asset “if returning it to circulation is not conducive to the public good,” and victims of crypto crime will be empowered to apply for the return of digital assets stolen from them.
Chief Crown Prosecutor Adrian Foster argued last year that the expanded powers were necessary in an era when criminals are leveraging crypto technology.
“Crypto assets are often used by criminal gangs to launder their criminal profits internationally at the touch of a button.
It is vital that investigators and prosecutors have the capability and agility to keep pace with this changing nature of crime, [and] these new measures will greatly assist our ability to restrain, freeze, or eliminate crypto assets from illegal enterprise.”
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