TL;DR:
A Dublin drug dealer hid €50 million in Bitcoin keys inside a fishing rod case. Then his landlord binned when he stopped paying rent (he was in jail..again) while clearing out his flat. It’s now landfill loot.
It All Started When
Clinton Collins was a forward-thinking criminal. Based in Dublin, he ran a successful drug operation and, like any modern entrepreneur with questionable morals, he knew cryptocurrency was the perfect way to store illicit wealth. No bank accounts. No paper trail. Just Bitcoin and chill.
Over time, Clinton amassed a stash of Bitcoin worth more than €50 million at its peak. But securing that kind of digital fortune requires more than just hope. You’d think a hardened dealer would lock it away in a password manager, engrave it on a steel seed plate, or bury it under a fake dog kennel.
Instead, Clinton went with… a fishing rod case.
Yes, that was his security strategy. Hide the keys to a digital empire in something your granddad might use on a weekend trip to Galway.
And Then
In 2017, Clinton’s luck ran out. He was arrested, charged, and sentenced for drug-related offenses. While he sat behind bars, his unpaid rent began to pile up—and his landlord, fed up with the lack of payment and presence, cleared out the flat.
Among the clutter? That old, dusty fishing rod case. To the landlord, it looked like trash. No labels. No locked compartments. Just a leftover piece of gear from a now-incarcerated tenant.
So, naturally, he binned it.
The case—and the only copy of the private keys to Clinton’s crypto millions—ended up in a landfill in County Galway, buried under bags of rubbish, broken furniture, and Irish shame.
When Clinton finally realized what had happened, it was too late. The authorities confirmed the loss in court. The landfill wasn’t worth searching—especially for a convicted felon without a shovel, GPS coordinates, or a prayer.
The Facepalm
This wasn’t some hacker attack or high-tech heist. This was a simple case of trash meets treasure.
Reddit lit up like a bonfire.
One user joked:
“Proof-of-dump: The new consensus protocol.”
Another commented:
“You live by the Bitcoin, you die by the bin.”
Twitter exploded with memes, including one photoshopping Clinton’s face over the character from Finding Nemo, with the caption: “Just keep digging.”
In court, Clinton admitted to the loss with the kind of resigned despair you’d expect from someone who watched €50 million get yeeted by a landlord. The Irish authorities confirmed what everyone feared: the Bitcoin was gone forever.
No hacks. No confiscation. Just a fishing rod case full of digital treasure, dumped like an old mattress during spring cleaning.
Does This Deserve a HODLaward?
👍 You tell us.
From drug empire to digital landfill legend, Clinton Collins went from stacking satoshis to starring in one of the dumbest loss stories in crypto history.
He was last seen staring at a landfill with binoculars and regret.
