Who Is Clifton Collins? The Honeymaker Turned Almost Billionaire Drug Dealer

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Clifton Collins is many things: security guard, beekeeper, award-winning honeymaker, Bitcoin HODLer, cannabis cultivator, drug-dealer, convict. 

However, there is one thing Clifton Collins is not: a billionaire. 

Although he came extremely close to earning that title too in October 2025 when his Bitcoin stash hit $750M. Bitcoin itself had hit its all-time high of around $126,000 and, on paper, Clifton Collins was filthy rich. 

But unfortunately for Collins, this huge wealth was completely inaccessible to him. For starters, Collins was in prison in Ireland, serving five years after police found €2,000 worth of cannabis in his car. 

But unfortunately for the Irish police, who had seized Collins’ possessions as part of the proceeds of his criminal activities, the Bitcoin was reportedly inaccessible to them as well. 

It was assumed that the Bitcoin was lost forever, destroyed in either Germany or China, after being left in a rubbish dump in County Galway. 

However, all that suddenly changed in March 2026 when one of Collins’ wallets suddenly reactivated and sent $35M worth of BTC to a Coinbase Custody address. 

This is the incredible story of Clifton Collins. 

Who is Clifton Collins?

Clifton Collins is a 55-year old man from Crumlin, Dublin. Crumlin is known for being a predominantly working-class area in South-West Dublin. Before Collins’ bought his first Bitcoin and kickstarted this incredible story, he was a security guard, then a beekeeper. His background is a far-cry from the typical tech-savvy early adopters who usually get rich from crypto.

But over 10 years ago, Collins pivoted to drug dealing and started buying Bitcoin with the proceeds. It was 2011 and the price of one Bitcoin was hovering around $5. By 2012, Collins had accumulated 6,000 BTC, worth around $30K at the time. Not exactly life-changing money. But Collins wasn't buying Bitcoin to get rich quick. He was buying it to hide the profits of his relatively minor cannabis operation from the authorities.

By 2017, because of Bitcoin's dramatic rise in value, Collins' stash had turned him into a multimillionaire, with $6M to his name. Today, according to data from Arkham Intel, Collins (his BTC stash at least) is the seventh richest on-chain individual in the world. Not bad for a small-time drug dealer from County Galway.

Bitcoin Net Worth Over Time

When Collins first started stacking Bitcoin in 2011 through 2012, his 6,000 BTC was worth roughly $30K. He could have bought himself a car. In early 2017, at the time of his arrest, that same stash was worth $6M. He could have bought a lovely house in Galway. 

But in 2017, after Collins was behind bars, Bitcoin went on an incredible run, peaking at over $19K. Collins saw his fortune go from $6M to $100M - a 16x increase.

By the 2025 bull run, Bitcoin was at its peak and Collins' wallets were worth around $750M. He was almost a billionaire.

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At today's prices, Collins' Arkham entity holds around $400M, which would make him the seventh wealthiest on-chain person on Earth. But despite sitting on a mouth-watering fortune, Collins has not benefited from it at all.

How Did He Lose His Private Keys?

To protect his illicit fortune, Collins printed the private keys of his various BTC wallets onto an A4 piece of paper and then stored them inside a fishing rod in his house. 

But in 2017, Collins was jailed and evicted from his rented house. To make the story even more incredible, Collins – who was sitting on a $6M fortune at the time – was in a rented house. After the eviction, his landlord gathered all of Collins’ possessions and took them to a landfill in County Galway. We must assume that Collins’ landlord had no idea about the private keys stashed in the fishing rod. 

Why Was The BTC Assumed Lost Forever?

In County Galway, the landfill dumps periodically send items to China and Germany to be incinerated. It was assumed by the authorities and the media that Collins' private keys, and therefore his entire Bitcoin fortune, had been removed and destroyed. 

Collins was presumed to have joined a growing list of unfortunate early crypto investors who had lost their private keys: James Howells, Rain Lohmus and Stefan Thomas spring to mind. You can track all these unlucky individuals on Arkham Intel.

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For years, that was the whole story. An Irish drug dealer turned $30,000 into hundreds of millions of dollars, only to lose it all because he didn’t secure his private keys adequately.

Why Has His Stash Suddenly Awoken?

But in March 2026, the story reignited. One of Collins' 14 wallets woke up. 

$35M worth of BTC was transferred to a Coinbase Custody address and suddenly the incredible story of Clifton Collins was alive again. 

In the immediate aftermath, various potential theories were discussed. For example, it was suggested that Collins, who is now out of prison, could have lied to Irish police in 2017 and retained a copy of the private keys. 

Alternatively, the Irish Times reported in 2020 that there was a break-in at Collins' house before his landlord moved his goods to the dump. The burglars may have been after his private keys and the March 2026 transfer may have been the first attempt at cashing out from these burglars. 

Whilst these are plausible theories, there is only one explanation: the Irish police have somehow discovered the private keys to one of Collins’ wallets and seized the Bitcoin by sending it to Coinbase for institutional custody. 

The Garda, Ireland’s national police and security service, released an announcement on the 24th March 2026 which is highly likely to reference the BTC transaction that everyone can see on-chain. 

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On their website, Garda confirmed a seizure of "approximately €30 million in cryptocurrency" which is almost certainly part of Collins' stash. The statement references "500 bitcoins" which aligns exactly with transaction data from Arkham Intel.

As of yet, there has been no statement regarding how they managed to retrieve the private keys that everyone had assumed to be lost. We do know that the seizure was completed in a joint operation alongside the Criminal Assets Bureau and Europol.