French police have dismantled an illegal Bitcoin exchange and seized 388 virtual currency units worth some 200,000 euros ($272,800) in the first such operation in Europe, a public prosecutor said on Monday. Two people in the Riviera coastal cities of Cannes and Nice were placed under formal investigation on Friday and detained on suspicion that they operated a website which illegally sold and lent Bitcoins to its users. Its the first time in Europe that a judicial action has resulted in the closure of an illegal exchange for virtual currency, Olivier Caracotch, prosecutor in the southwestern town of Foix where the investigation started, told Reuters.
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