Two individuals who stole 45 Bitcoins after obtaining the password to an acquaintance’s cryptocurrency wallet have been handed over to prosecutors while in custody.
On April 25, the Cyber Investigation Unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency announced that they had referred the main perpetrator, a 34-year-old man identified as A, and a 35-year-old Thai man identified as B, who was responsible for laundering the funds, to the prosecution in custody on charges including computer fraud under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes and violations of the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization. The remaining two individuals, who managed the proceeds from the crime, are being investigated by the police without detention.
The suspects are accused of deceiving a victim they had known for a long time to obtain the wallet’s mnemonic code, and then, in January of last year, stealing 45 Bitcoins (worth approximately 6.07 billion won at current market value). A mnemonic code is a combination of 12 to 24 English words used to recover a digital wallet; with these words, all virtual assets in the wallet can be restored on another device.
In January 2023, the victim accepted advice that there was a safer way to store virtual assets and transferred their Bitcoins to a cold wallet (offline wallet). However, while assisting with the transfer, the suspects secretly recorded the recovery phrase without the victim’s knowledge and, in January of last year, used it to recover 45 Bitcoins into their own wallet.
The suspects are reported to have laundered the stolen Bitcoins by transferring them multiple times to various exchanges through B, and exchanging 20 Bitcoins for Thai baht through the Thai black market.
A police official stated, "If users lack proper security awareness, their virtual assets can be stolen at any time. Sharing your recovery phrase with others is equivalent to handing over the keys to your safe," adding, "We will strengthen crackdowns on virtual asset crimes and do our utmost to protect the public’s assets."
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