Australian Officer Accused of Stealing Seized 81.6 BTC

The Melbourne court is examining the case of former federal police officer William Wheatley, accused of stealing bitcoins confiscated from a drug syndicate. This was reported by CryptoPotato.

In January 2019, police investigated the illegal trade of drugs and steroids via the darknet and seized, among other things, a Trezor hardware wallet containing 81.6 BTC.

The device was handed over to the Icarus task force for access recovery. However, cyber police later discovered that all the cryptocurrency was withdrawn shortly after the wallet’s confiscation. At that time, the stolen amount was valued at approximately $450,000. Today, it exceeds $4.2 million.

Initially, accomplices of the drug dealers were suspected. In 2021, the case was reopened, and with new tracking tools, the investigation led to a police officer—one of the IP addresses was linked to the AFP headquarters in Melbourne.

It was established that from January 29 to April 11, 2019, the assets were moved through 28 transactions to various cryptocurrency platforms. Some of these are allegedly connected to withdrawals deposited into Wheatley’s bank account from 2019 to September 2022.

The officer was charged in December 2022. Currently, the defense insists on the circumstantial nature of the evidence and intends to contest the claim.

In August 2021, Australian law enforcement, as part of a darknet drug trade investigation, confiscated a record amount of cryptocurrency for the country—about $6 million at that time.