A cryptocurrency business operator in his 40s has been arrested for stealing 22 Bitcoin that were being held at a police station.
According to legal sources on the 28th, the Uijeongbu District Court issued an arrest warrant for the suspect, identified only as "A," following a pre-arrest examination on charges of violating the Information and Communications Network Act and the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes (fraud using computers). The court cited "risk of flight and evidence destruction" as grounds for the warrant.
A is accused of siphoning off 22 Bitcoin that had been stored at Gangnam Police Station in Seoul in May 2022. The cryptocurrency company operated by A had reported to police in 2020 that coins it had issued and held were compromised in a hacking incident. The Gangnam Police Station, which handled the case, had reportedly received and stored the 22 Bitcoin linked to the hacking crime through voluntary submission.
At the time, the Bitcoin was stored in a "cold wallet"—an offline digital wallet in the form of a portable USB device. Investigators found that A committed the crime using a "mnemonic code," a recovery passphrase for digital wallets, which allowed access to the Bitcoin without physical possession of the cold wallet. The suspects allegedly converted the stolen Bitcoin to cash and spent approximately 1 billion won ($730,000).
A police official said, "The investigation is mostly complete. We plan to refer the case to prosecutors once additional questioning is finished."