It has come to light that prosecutors lost virtual assets that were seized during an investigation and kept in storage.
According to the Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office on the 23rd, they confirmed in December last year that a substantial amount of Bitcoin seized in connection with crimes in June–July last year had gone missing. Based on its internal review, the prosecution suspects phishing occurred during the handling of the seized items.
A prosecution official said, "It is true that the seized Bitcoin was leaked, and we are conducting an investigation to recover it," adding, "We are checking the specific scale of the damage and the circumstances." However, in legal circles there is speculation that the losses could reach into the hundreds of billions of won.
The Bitcoin lost in this case was secured during a 2021 investigation into an illegal gambling website. At the time, a woman in her 30s was indicted on charges of siphoning off 1,476 Bitcoin as revenue from the illegal gambling site.
As for how it went missing, in addition to phishing, the possibility of involvement by an insider has also been raised. The prosecution said, "We are keeping all possibilities open in our investigation."