Police investigate alleged theft of $4.8 million in cryptocurrency seized by National Tax Service
Published: 28 Feb. 2026, 14:19
Updated: 28 Feb. 2026, 14:21
![The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency in central Seoul [NEWS1]](https://koreaseafood.online/data/photo/2026/02/28/a5442a2c-356e-4556-9b76-1db83ee8f444.jpg)
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency in central Seoul [NEWS1]
Police have launched an investigation into the alleged theft of cryptocurrency seized by the National Tax Service.
The National Police Agency (NPA) said on Saturday that it has assigned the matter to it s cyberterrorism response division and begun a preliminary inquiry.
“We began analyzing the flow of the virtual assets and tracking the perpetrator as soon as we received the investigation request from the National Tax Service on Feb. 27,” a police official said.
In a press release sent out on Thursday to promote the NPA's efforts to collect delinquent taxes, the agency inadvertently exposed a mnemonic code that serves as the master key to a cold wallet. The collected virtual assets, worth $4.8 million, had been stolen shortly afterward.
A cold wallet is a physical electronic device used to store virtual assets. However, with a mnemonic code, it is possible to restore the wallet and transfer coins without the physical device.
The police are investigating whether the code was leaked through high-resolution photographs distributed to some media outlets. If a suspect is identified, their charges could include violations of the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, as well as fraud involving the use of computers under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes.
This is not the first time that cryptocurrency seized by investigative authorities has been lost or stolen. Last month, the Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office lost a substantial amount of Bitcoins that it had been holding as confiscated evidence. The Gangnam Police Precinct in Seoul also faced controversy after it belatedly discovered that Bitcoins that had been voluntarily submitted in connection with a crime had been leaked.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY KIM JI-HYE [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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