It has come to light that the Seoul Gangnam Police Station lost bitcoin it had seized and was keeping during an investigation.
According to police on the 13th, the Gangnam Police Station identified during an internal probe that 22 bitcoins, which had been voluntarily submitted in connection with a crime in Nov. 2021 and kept in storage, were leaked externally. The value of the missing bitcoin is about 2.1 billion won based on that day's market price.
The USB (portable storage device) type "cold wallet" (offline electronic wallet) that contained the information needed to dispose of the bitcoin remained intact, but only the bitcoin inside was reportedly transferred out to an external wallet.
Earlier, after it became known last month that 320 bitcoins (market value about 31.2 billion won) seized and kept by the Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office had disappeared, the Korean National Police Agency was checking the status of virtual assets managed by front-line police stations.
The Gyeonggi Northern Police Agency has launched a pre-booking inquiry (internal inquiry) to look into any links to the Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office case and whether internal staff were involved.