The Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office said on the 19th that it had recovered all 320 bitcoins (currently worth about 31.7 billion won) that were lost when evidence-management investigators accessed a "phishing site."
Prosecutors said they would compile the circumstances of the bitcoin recovery and their position and make them public soon. They added that, so far, no suspects have been arrested and no insiders booked in connection with this case.
In Aug. last year, the Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office had 320 bitcoins seized in a gambling site case stolen after accessing a phishing site. Prosecutors believe that investigators, while transferring custody of the seized items, accessed a phishing site while checking the number of bitcoins.
At monthly inspections of seized items, the Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office had managed only the physical device of the electronic wallet, which looks like a USB flash drive, while skipping checks of the contents, and learned of the loss only last month, when procedures began to transfer the bitcoins to the national treasury.
Prosecutors are conducting an internal audit to examine whether investigators or other insiders were involved, while simultaneously investigating to apprehend those who stole the bitcoins.