I don't think he lost the bitcoins. Someone knowledgeable enough to know to divide the bitcoins in multiple wallets will know to have backups in multiple places, and certainly not in one physical place where anyone can get to it. It's a red herring. Just think about it. He created 24 fake gmail accounts (article says he has 12 bitcoin wallets, so I'm doubling his stash), puts a truecrypt encrypted file containing 1 single wallet file on each google drive), all the gmail accounts can have the same password and the encrypted file a different password, easy to remember. Is there anyone in the world who would know what gmail accounts these are? That's my point. And there are other ways to hide these wallets online or in physical form or some online, others physical. Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are like Swiss bank accounts when they were still good, no name, secret and private. From the lead dev of Monero who wears an $800K watch:
Yeah, the story sounds fishy. Luck of the Irish though... "when he was arrested in 2017 for cannabis possession and sentenced to five years in prison. " Back in 2017 BTC was worth twice as much than now. He had 6000 coins, it is hard to believe he didn't cash out at least a few millions so he doesn't have to sell weed. I am not sure about bonds in Ireland, but I would skip bail and not spend time in prison if I had a few thousand coins...But let's say the address was in the fishing rod. The first thing after my arrest would be to pay someone to get the rods....Because they have emotional value or some other bullshit story.
The story is quite unbelievable. Split 6000 bitcoins to 12 wallets but not have offsite backups? A simple fire would have wiped out his stash. I don't want to reveal too much to not compromise OpSec, but I hinted that there are other options to gmail, which in his case may not have worked as google has a policy that they may deactivate after 9 months of inactivity. I checked on one of my throwaway gmail accounts recently and it still works, but just for safe disclosure, anyone using online backups should utilize accounts that don't expire by using paid services and make sure they are double encrypted, the wallet files and the the container, probably makes sense to use hidden volumes in truecrypt to have a smaller quantity wallet file for the password under duress... Maybe protonmail, maybe some solid VPS providers. Bring to his cousin in another town/country some belongings and maybe a USB with some personal pictures and videos and one of the .jpg files could be a truecrypt container and let cousin know to keep safe for him. Obviously Mr fisherman drug dealer would have done this as part of his offsite backup strategy before a crisis happens. It would have made sense for him with so much money on the line. For further disclosure, this is not my setup, just speculation of ideas.... [Do I believe he had 6000 bitcoins, maybe, maybe not, but they recovered 12 wallets with addresses containing those coins, they can track when those coins were transferred and if they were transferred out, public ledger/blockchain and all, the history tells the story if the coins originated when bitcoins were very cheap and consolidated in 2016 and never moved per the article]
In prison it is better thought to be an idiot than a millionaire. I bet those coins will move after his release. I wonder if the government can come after him if the coins move eventually? All he needs is plausible deniability, that someone else moved the coins. I have a feeling the dude is going to move out of Ireland.