The Korean National Police Agency has once again lost confiscated crypto assets. This time, 22 BTC (approximately $1.46 million) disappeared from a cold hardware wallet that had been transferred to the agency in November 2021. It marks the second such incident in a year: earlier, 320 BTC (around $21.4 million) went missing at the Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office.
An internal investigation has already been launched to determine the circumstances of the loss and whether any employees were involved. Reports stress that the physical storage device itself was not stolen; however, the bitcoins were nevertheless transferred out. The disappearance went unnoticed for some time because the related criminal investigations had been suspended, meaning the assets were not actively monitored.
Incidents like these seriously undermine public trust in the safeguarding of seized digital assets in the country. They also highlight the critical importance of implementing strict access controls, multi-signature authorization procedures, continuous wallet auditing, and real-time monitoring systems to ensure the integrity and security of confiscated cryptocurrencies.