Summary
- The Australian Federal Police said it seized assets worth AUD 9 million by decrypting a virtual asset wallet.
- The seizure was carried out by the Criminal Assets Confiscation Taskforce, and it said there had been a previous cryptocurrency recovery case of about US$3 million.
- Seized assets will be assigned to the Commonwealth account after a court order and are expected to be used as resources for crime prevention.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) decrypted a virtual asset (cryptocurrency) wallet and seized AUD 9 million (about US$5.9 million).
According to Cointelegraph on the 15th (local time), the AFP decrypted a virtual asset wallet linked to crime and seized AUD 9 million. Krissy Barrett (AFP commissioner) described the action as "a miraculous achievement."
The AFP obtained a password-locked note and a random-number image file during an investigation of organized crime suspects. The digital forensics team determined that the image consisted of six groups of numbers and about 50 combinations and was related to the seed phrase of the encrypted wallet.
The suspect refused to provide the wallet key, and under Australian law refusing to provide access to an encrypted wallet can result in up to 10 years in prison. Barrett said, "If they had not been able to open the wallet, the suspect would have retained millions of dollars after release," adding, "Such an outcome is unacceptable."
The AFP digital forensics team had previously recovered about US$3 million worth of cryptocurrency. Both cases were handled by the AFP-led 'Criminal Assets Confiscation Taskforce', and seized assets are assigned to the Commonwealth account after a court order. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke will then redistribute them as crime prevention funding.
Son Min
sonmin@bloomingbit.ioHello I’m Son Min, a journalist at BloomingBit
