It is also appropriate to refer in the context of section 41 of the Criminal Procedure Ordinance (Arrest and Search) [New Version], 5729-1969, according to which: "... If the object is lost, the court may, if it is convinced that there was a crime or negligence in keeping it, to charge the State Treasury for damages in the amount it will determine."
In contrast to the trial court, which held that this was not a transfer of seized material, but rather the transfer of evidentiary material, I am of the opinion, in view of my conclusion that this is a matter of dual nature, that the investigating unit should have given consideration to the property aspects of the material that was transferred, if only within the framework of its general duty to ensure that the value of the object it produced in its interrogation was preserved.
- In particular, this is true in light of the wording of the original request for a search warrant for computer materials, in which the police stated that it was seeking to conduct a search according to search words, inter alia: "...Digital wallets, digital currencies... and any valuable property that will be found."
The search process was documented in an action report detailing the search process. Officer Silberstein's action report shows that he used search words, among others: "BITCOIN"; " Financial activity." Among the search products were text files that included "recovery kernels" of Bitcoin wallets.
This leads to the conclusion that this is a search that was aimed from the outset to locate materials related to Bitcoin, whether for the Israeli police or the US authorities. The action report also shows that the materials and products of the search "were handed over to the investigating investigators for review and determination of relevance" (action report of September 14, 2019, Moshe Silberstein).
Shortly thereafter, the aforementioned materials were transferred to the US authorities as part of the same legal aid proceeding, without any reservations.