Two individuals held in pretrial custody for stealing bitcoins confiscated in 2021.
According to JoongAng Ilbo, South Korean police arrested two people on February 25, on charges of stealing 22 BTC held at the Gangnam Police Station in Seoul. The two suspects were taken into custody by the Gyeonggi Northern Provincial Police Agency on charges of violating the Information and Communications Network Act for allegedly “leaking” the digital funds from a device held by the Gangnam Police Station.
The 22 BTC in question, worth approximately $1.5 million at current market prices, were originally seized in November 2021 as part of an investigation into the “A Coin Foundation,” an organization that had filed a complaint over the “disappearance” of 700 million units of its native token. The bitcoins were only recently found to be missing, nearly five years after the seizure.
At the heart of the case lies a serious breach in the chain of custody: rather than storing the seized digital assets on a state-managed device, police had used a cold wallet provided by A Coin Foundation itself — the very party that had filed the complaint in the proceedings. The two individuals arrested are allegedly connected to A Coin Foundation and are suspected of having used the wallet’s mnemonic recovery phrase to access and steal the bitcoins. The report does not indicate that the 22 BTC have been recovered.
“We are investigating the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the virtual assets, but since the investigation is still ongoing, we cannot confirm any specific details,” a Gyeonggi Northern Provincial Police Agency official said.
The case features an additional element of institutional corruption. The detective originally assigned to the A Coin hacking case in 2021 at the Gangnam station — a former senior superintendent identified only as “D” — is currently serving a prison sentence. The officer was indicted on corruption charges related to A Coin Foundation and received an 18-month prison sentence in August 2024. According to court documents cited in the report, foundation officials had paid bribes to expedite the hacking investigation and ensure it proceeded in their favor.
