William C Lopez 
The U.S. authorities has filed a civil forfeiture motion to get well $54 million value of Ethereum (ETH) beforehand seized from Christopher Castelluzzo.
In a press release on Nov. 2, 2023, the workplace of the U.S. lawyer for the District of New Jersey introduced the submitting of a civil forfeiture motion to get well $54 million in ETH belonging to Christopher Castelluzzo, who’s at present serving concurrent federal and state sentences for drug distribution.
Castelluzzo, alongside together with his associates, sold narcotics and trafficked medication on the darknet between 2010 and 2015. He used about $9,000 from gross sales in 2014 to buy 30,000 ETH throughout Ethereum’s preliminary public providing (ICO). Later, he obtained an extra 30,000 Ethereum Traditional (ETC) following the Ethereum community’s exhausting fork in July 2016.
The 30,000 ETH bought with $9,000 has grown in worth and is at present value roughly $54 million.
The U.S. authorities can be looking for to forfeit different crypto property, together with Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX), Algorand (ALGO), Binance Coin (BNB), Uniswap (UNI), and Polkadot (DOT). Legislation enforcement moved all seized tokens, together with ETH, to government-controlled wallets in July 2022 and August 2023.
Whereas Castelluzzo was serving time, the convicted drug trafficker, in a recorded phone dialog, deliberate together with his associates to evade taxes and transfer the ETH to locations like Malta, Eire, and the Bahamas, as said within the court docket submitting.
As beforehand reported, the U.S. authorities holds about 200,000 BTC in {hardware} wallets, making it one of many largest asset holders, with a lot of the Bitcoin confiscated from criminals.
