Japan's Traffic Police seized Cryptocurrencies for Parking law violation

In shocking news, traffic police from Hyogo Prefecture in Japan have confiscated cryptocurrencies from a 59-year-old man for parking law violation and failure to pay those tickets. When questioned about this, the police gave an explanation of the revised settlement law which was enforced in last year April. As per law, cryptocurrency can be seized just like any other assets.

According to local media report Nikkei, the Hyogo Prefectural Police has charged about 5000 Japanese Yen(roughly $44 USD) for ‘unattended vehicle‘ parking law violation. But police did not reveal the type of cryptocurrency seized from the old man. Furthermore, the news outlet elaborated that,

“According to the prefectural police traffic guidance division, it is the first time in the country to seize virtual currency in relation to parking violations.”

Interestingly, the seized cryptocurrency by police did not recover the entire amount owed by the man to those cops. However, the law also states that if a person fails to submit all his pending payments by end of the month( which happens to be the deadline for claiming seized property), the police has all rights to convert all the cryptocurrencies linked to his exchange account at the current rate and consider that as the part of payment.

As per the published content on the news outlet, the old man is yet to pay 99,700 Japanese yen (approximately  $885 USD) for several traffic violations including four fines from January 2014 to July 2016.

Also, the police from Hyogo Prefecture gave a clarification that, “Land, houses, automobiles, bank savings, salary, and life insurance payouts could be seized, based on the decision of the Public Safety Commission”.  But in this case, police was not aware of old man’s place of work and did not have cash or money in his savings account. The police finally quoted that,

“It is the first time in the country in which crypto currencies are seized in relation to traffic fines“

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