A lack of precedent leads Swedish court to return 33 BTC after law enforcement seizure

A Swedish court has mandated that the country's government owes an alleged drug dealer more than $1.3 million in bitcoin due to the way in which law enforcement sold some of their seized crypto.

Swedish Law Enforcement seized the man's holdings of 36 BTC in connection with the offenses during proceedings, and a court valued the sum at 1.3 million Swedish kronor, or about $147,000. Prosecutors successfully argued that the accused should be stripped of that sum. 

However, law enforcement auctioned off the BTC only when the price had skyrocketed. By then, only 3 BTC covered the value the court ordered the man to pay in connection with his 36 BTC, as first reported by the Telegraph.

Because there was no established precedent on how to navigate fluctuating price of cryptocurrency in this context, the court returned the remaining 33 BTC.