Avon and Somerset Police completed its largest-ever cryptocurrency recovery in the Avon and Somerset Bitcoin seizure that forfeited £1,032,487.86 in digital assets and bank funds earlier in 2026, after financial investigators traced the holdings to several darknet marketplaces active between 2016 and 2019.
The recovered assets included 20.21 BTC, additional cryptoassets, and money held in a bank account. Officials did not disclose the breakdown between tokens and cash, nor did they name the specific coins involved. A court approved the forfeiture under the Proceeds of Crime Act after accepting that the assets represented proceeds of unlawful conduct. The unnamed individual at the centre of the investigation had previously been convicted of money laundering and has since died.
Blockchain Records Exposed the Darknet Funds
Working with the force’s cyber team, financial investigators used specialist tracing methods to follow the Bitcoin through several darknet marketplaces. Police said law enforcement agencies have since closed all of the platforms, which facilitated offences ranging from drug distribution to human trafficking.
The period the investigation covers, 2016 to 2019, overlaps with several major enforcement actions. The US Department of Justice shut down AlphaBay in July 2017 following an international operation spanning the United States, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Canada, the United Kingdom, and France. Dutch police had already taken covert control of Hansa, running it for roughly one month to gather intelligence on vendors and buyers who migrated after AlphaBay’s closure. Dream Market ceased operating in 2019. Avon and Somerset Police did not confirm whether the recovered Bitcoin passed through any of those specific platforms.
Detective Constable Anthony Davis of the Financial Investigation Unit addressed the misconception that cryptocurrency offers genuine anonymity. The blockchain stores a ‘permanent record of transactions’ that can become ‘an invaluable source of evidence,’ he said, adding that specialist financial investigation skills were increasingly critical for locating criminal assets held in digital form.
Avon and Somerset Bitcoin Seizure Enabled by 2024 Legal Powers
The recovery is the force’s largest since the UK Home Office brought new cryptoasset seizure powers into force on 26 April 2024. Those powers were introduced by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, which grafted Crypto Wallet Freezing Orders (CWFOs) onto Part 5 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. As Corker Binning’s analysis of the legislation notes, CWFOs were modelled on Account Freezing Orders created by the Criminal Finances Act 2017.
Under the current rules, police can freeze cryptoassets on reasonable suspicion of a criminal connection without first making an arrest. Authorities can transfer seized tokens into law enforcement-controlled wallets, recover seed phrases and hardware devices, and in some cases destroy assets outright. The Home Office identified privacy-focused cryptocurrencies as one category that could warrant destruction rather than return to circulation. A freezing order does not itself establish criminality; forfeiture still requires a court to be satisfied the assets came from unlawful conduct, as was the case here.
The announcement of those powers in April 2024 also noted that the National Crime Agency had worked with the US Drug Enforcement Administration on a multi-million drug enterprise investigation, leading to $150 million in cash and cryptocurrency seized.
The Helix Case Illustrates How Far Blockchain Tracing Has Come
The Avon and Somerset result sits alongside a run of US darknet-linked forfeitures built on the same tracing methodology. On 21 January 2026, Judge Beryl A. Howell of the District Court for the District of Columbia entered the final order of forfeiture in the Helix mixer case, completing a $400 million asset recovery tied to operator Larry Dean Harmon.
The IRS Criminal Investigation division states that Helix processed at least approximately 354,468 BTC equivalent to approximately $311,145,854 at the time of the transactions; the DOJ press release puts the same metric at approximately $300 million. The IRS Criminal Investigation release also notes that Helix was connected to Grams, a darknet search engine Harmon operated alongside the mixer.
Separately, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) assessed a $60 million civil money penalty against Harmon for Bank Secrecy Act violations, citing Helix’s failure to collect customer identifiers across more than 1.2 million transactions, and Harmon’s deliberate deletion of even the limited data that was gathered. FinCEN described it as the first penalty ever imposed on a Bitcoin mixer. Chainalysis reported that Harmon had formally partnered Helix with AlphaBay, Dream Market, and several other darknet markets to expand the mixer’s customer base.
Avon and Somerset Police said funds recovered under the Proceeds of Crime Act may be directed to education, early intervention, and crime-prevention work. Whether the forfeited BTC has been liquidated or remains in a law enforcement wallet has not been disclosed. If it has not been sold, the timing of any disposal will determine the final sterling yield.
