Syed Rahman outlines how a high-profile convicted individual failed to prevent the authorities seizing his crypto assets.
A convicted drug trafficker has failed in an attempt to stop prosecutors recovering Bitcoin with an estimated value of £3.5 million ($4.3 million).
High Court Judge Timothy Mould ruled that Alexander Surin’s cryptocurrency could be recovered by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) as it had been obtained through drug trafficking and money laundering.
Surin’s 78.2 Bitcoin were being held in a wallet on the cryptoasset platform Coinbase. The judge said the CPS has shown it had a “good arguable case’’ that the assets had been gained through criminal activity.
Surin, a Dubai resident previously known as Michael Singh Boparan, had gained the nickname Don Car-leone in the British press because of his car collection. Before fleeing to Dubai after being convicted of drug trafficking in France, Surin would boast about his cars on chat forums. But a decade ago he was forced to surrender three Ferraris, a Rolls-Royce and money from the sale of a Bugatti Veyron to the National Crime Agency (NCA) as the proceeds of crime.
He had denied the latest allegations against him, saying that his Bitcoin had been obtained through legitimate trading from Dubai in gold bullion, expensive Swiss watches and cars.
The civil recovery proceedings brought against Surin followed an investigation into a large-scale drug trafficking operation. This saw police examining encrypted notes on a phone used by someone who has since pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply a Class A drug and been sentenced to 17 years in prison. Police linked two cryptocurrency transactions involving this man to an account held in Surin's name. This account, which had been opened in June 2020 and had held £1.5 million in Bitcoin, was suspended due to a High Court freezing order.
Judge Mould referred to the evidence of these two transactions and the “compelling inference’’ that the account was being operated by Surin “for the purpose of laundering money obtained through or derived from criminal conduct, probably the supply of controlled drugs."
The judge added that the financial records Surin provided to support his argument that the cryptocurrency was obtained through legitimate trading were severely limited, and “little more than a commentary on the market for luxury watches, cars and gold bullion which he could readily have obtained from published sources such as business or trade magazines or articles."
Judge Mould added, "Had he genuinely been trading successfully in luxury watches and cars, it is inconceivable that he would have been unable to offer far greater specific information about the history of his trading activities."
Surin’s legal representatives said that he was considering an appeal against what they called “an extraordinary judgment which places the whole burden on our client to prove his innocence when he does not even have access to basic documents including his Bitcoin account as this was barred by the court at the [director of public prosecution's] insistence."
