Tim Alper iGaming Journalist
Tim Alper is a journalist covering betting news and regulation for CasinoBeats, with a focus on regulatory developments and international markets. He reports on breaking stories across Europe and Asia, including gambling law changes and...
Read Full BioSouth Korean prosecutors say they have “lost” 320 Bitcoin, worth over $28 million, which police seized from online gambling operators in November 2021.
Prosecutors in the city of Gwangju took control of the coins after police discovered them in a crypto wallet registered in the name of a suspected gambling operator’s daughter, the South Korean media outlet OhmyNews reported.
Officials told the media outlet that the prosecution service had been targeted by a phishing attack in August 2025. The media outlet reported that police were holding the coins in five separate offline wallets on USB devices. As a result of the attack, prosecutors mistakenly sent the contents of all five wallets to a single, unknown Bitcoin address.
“It is true that we were the victims of a phishing attack last August,” a prosecution service official told the news outlet. “We were checking the status of the seized Bitcoin during a handover process after a personnel change within the service.”
The official added, “The prosecution is making every effort to recover the lost BTC 320. We are conducting both internal inspections and external investigations.”
Prosecutors Lost Bitcoin: Hunt for BTC Continues
Prosecutors say they are trying to trace the funds but have discovered that the voice-phishing attackers have traded some of the coins for cash.
They claimed, however, that a “significant amount” of the Bitcoin “has not yet been converted into fiat currency.”
The service said this means that the coins “are not completely untraceable.”
The Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office said it has launched an audit of five of its inspectors.
Officials told the media that the inspectors had attempted to check the amount of Bitcoin stored in the wallets. They did not know how to do this, so they searched for an online tool.
However, they allegedly connected their devices to a specially designed phishing website. The site had been crafted to resemble a bona fide wallet-checking tool.
This allowed the phishing site operators to access the wallets remotely and steal all of their contents.
Criminal Charges to Follow?
The investigators appear to have been unaware that they lost the coins until very recently. Officers believed the Bitcoin was still in the USB offline wallets.
Officials say the investigators could face criminal charges if the audit finds they were negligent in their duties.
The trial of the suspected gambling operator, his daughter, and other suspected associates is currently ongoing at a district court.
Police said they believed the gang had amassed a total of BTC 1,798, worth over $152 million, from their illegal betting operations, although officers were only able to confiscate a fraction of that sum.
Earlier this month, a Chinese court began the trial of an IT expert accused of stealing Bitcoin from an overseas sports betting site.
Police officials have seized almost $17 million from the man, who denies wrongdoing. The suspect says he was coerced into confessing to the crime.
Also this month, Tennessee’s Sports Wagering Council sent a cease-and-desist letter to the crypto exchange giant Crypto.com, claiming the sports event contracts they offer to state residents are a form of unlicensed sports betting.
