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A grow house dealer - who has forfeited the largest ever haul of dirty money to the Criminal Assets Bureau - was using so much power he almost blew out the national grid.

CAB swooped on Crumlin, Dublin trafficker Clifton Collins after probing a massive surge in energy use.

On Monday the bureau was granted permission to freeze €52 million worth of the digital currency bitcoin belonging to Collins.

The asset was seized from the 49-year-old after gardai discovered he was behind a highly sophisticated cannabis farm.

But we can reveal they began probing the Dubliner after noticing an energy surge linked to his “mining” of online money.

Detectives discovered Collins had amassed 6,000 units of digital bitcoin, worth a staggering €52 million.

The online money exists in digital wallets, backed up by a secure global database which tracks ownership.

The ”mining” of cryptocurrency online requires massive amounts of energy.

The complex algorithms and computer power used to generate one unit of the virtual currency could power 30 homes for a day.

Globally, bitcoin mining uses as much energy every year as a country the size of Ireland.

CAB seized the cryptocurrency haul after swooping on Collins as he drove a jeep across the Wicklow mountains in February 2017.

They discovered cannabis worth €2,000 in the vehicle.

Follow-up searches revealed a booming cannabis grow house at an address in Corr na Móna in Galway with plants worth almost half a million euro.

The seizure led to a trawl of the dealer’s assets and officers discovered he made a windfall by investing early in the internet currency which has soared in value in recent years.

On Monday the High Court ruled that his digital wealth was the proceeds of crime and should be forfeit to the state. It accepted Collins was involved in the supply and sale of drugs.

The value of the crypto cash will eventually flow back to the taxpayers.

It represents the single biggest asset seized by CAB since it was set up in 1996 in the wake of the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin.

It helped the Bureau to its most successful ever year, seizing €62 million in criminal assets in the last 12 months.

On Monday CAB also froze more than €60,000 in a Ladbrokes betting account belonging to an alleged west Dublin drug dealer.

A mobile home in Courtown, Co Wexford and €21,000 cash was taken from a man with links to the Kinahan cartel.

What is bitcoin?

Bitcoin is an online currency. Each unit is basically a computer file which is stored in a ‘digital wallet’ app on a smartphone or computer.

People can send Bitcoins (or part of one) to your digital wallet, and you can send Bitcoins to other people.

Every single transaction is recorded in a public list called the blockchain to record ownership for the currency.