movie2k.to lawsuit

Secured bitcoins sold for €2.6 billion

One of the main defendants voluntarily handed over almost 50,000 Bitcoins to the investigators during the course of the proceedings.

(Bild: monsitj - stock.adobe.com)

The public prosecutor's office in Dresden has raised around €2.64 billion by selling around 50,000 bitcoins in connection with criminal proceedings against the operators of a former piracy portal. This is an unprecedented emergency sale in Germany.

However, the money will not initially flow into the Saxon state budget. Until the criminal proceedings surrounding the piracy portal movie2k.to have been concluded, it will only be held in safekeeping.

The Public Prosecutor General's Office has been investigating suspected operators of the internet portal, which was shut down by the authorities in 2013, for commercial copyright infringement and money laundering for some time. One of the main suspects voluntarily handed over almost 50,000 Bitcoins to the investigators during the course of the proceedings, as the authorities announced in January.

Emergency sale due to price fluctuations
The 40-year-old alleged operator has now been charged together with an accomplice at the regional court in Leipzig. Together with other operators, he is said to have invested illegal proceeds from the operation of movie2k.to in the cryptocurrency, whose value has recently risen massively again after strong fluctuations, according to the investigators. At the time of the suspect's handover, his Bitcoins were only worth 1.96 billion euros.

However, according to the Public Prosecutor General's Office, price movements on the market played no role in the timing of the emergency sale. This is not even legally permitted. Only the Code of Criminal Procedure is decisive. It prescribes emergency sales of seized assets even before the conclusion of proceedings whenever there is a risk of a loss in value of at least ten percent. This is the case given the fluctuations in bitcoins.

"In the case of an emergency sale to be carried out as quickly as possible, any price speculation or waiting for prices to rise is prohibited for a law enforcement agency," the investigators in Dresden stated. The sale of the bitcoins was carried out by a bank in Frankfurt am Main specializing in digital currencies in small tranches over a period of three and a half weeks, and the Federal Criminal Police Office was also involved in the operation.

Assets arouse covetousness
The income would only be available to the state budget if the regional court in Leipzig were to order the confiscation of the assets in a possible later judgment against the alleged operator and this decision were to become legally binding at a later date. In Saxony's state politics, however, the prospect already aroused interest on Tuesday.

The left-wing parliamentary group in the state parliament called for the money to be used for investments in hospitals, schools and daycare centers. "It is possible that around ten percent of an annual budget will flow into the state coffers on a one-off basis," explained parliamentary group leader Rico Gebhardt. This would be "a great stroke of luck". Under no circumstances should the state government decide on this alone; this is a matter for the state parliament.

Copies of films and TV series were illegally distributed via the streaming portal movie2k.to for years between 2008 and its shutdown in 2013. According to investigators, it used to be the largest German piracy portal. The alleged operators behind it were only caught years later, the alleged main perpetrator charged in Leipzig only in 2023. According to the Public Prosecutor General's Office, other operators had already been convicted in the complex in the past.