Nearly $48 million worth of confiscated bitcoins stolen in South Korea, 2026/01/23 13:04:53

The Gwangju City Prosecutor’s Office in South Korea began investigating the theft of 70 billion won (approximately $47.7 million) worth of bitcoins confiscated by local authorities.

The prosecutor’s office admitted that the shortage was discovered during an audit of confiscated assets. According to investigators, the cryptocurrency could have been stolen during a phishing attack on one of the prosecutor’s office employees who visited a fraudulent website. The stolen bitcoins were stored in a cold wallet before they were lost. 

Law enforcement officials do not specify when exactly the incident occurred. It came to light a few days after South Korea’s customs service dismantled a money laundering network using cryptocurrencies. The total amount of transfers in the case amounted to approximately 150 billion won ($100–110 million). 

For four years, the attackers collected funds through a wallet linked to the WeChat messenger and the Alipay service. The money was then converted into cryptocurrencies on foreign exchanges, transferred again to wallets in South Korea and exchanged back for fiat money, investigators said. To disguise transactions, the attackers used legal justifications: payment for plastic surgery and study abroad.

On January 10, an unknown crypto investor lost $282 million in cryptocurrency. His hardware wallet was not hacked: the attackers used social engineering methods to force the victim to complete the transaction.

According to Chainalysis analysts, the most effective phishing attacks are those carried out using artificial intelligence. On average, AI scams bring in $3.2 million per transaction, while regular crypto scams bring in $719,000.