A police officer who liquidated and stole Bitcoin seized during a drug investigation has been put on trial.

According to the legal community on September 28, the Criminal Proceeds Recovery Team at the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office indicted Inspector A, in his 40s and affiliated with the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency, without detention on charges including violation of the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Prevention of Illegal Trafficking in Narcotics and violation of the Act on Regulation and Punishment of Concealment of Criminal Proceeds.

Inspector A is accused of transferring approximately 0.033 BTC in Bitcoin seized in a drug case in August of last year—worth about 5.19 million won at the time—to another electronic wallet and using it.

Investigations revealed that he converted the Bitcoin being seized and stored through an electronic wallet created on his own mobile phone for investigative convenience into various types of virtual assets using a chain-hopping technique before cashing them out.

Inspector A's crime came to light when it was discovered that the Bitcoin had disappeared during the process of confiscating the seized items after the trial for the previous drug case was finalized.

An official from the prosecutors' office stated, "We will continue to thoroughly track increasingly sophisticated virtual asset concealment and money laundering crimes to strip away illegal profits and do our utmost to recover criminal proceeds."

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