Australian Federal Police denies accusations that 81 Bitcoins were taken from hardware wallet at crime scene

The Australian Federal Police have denied accusations of taking Bitcoin from a hardware wallet found at a crime scene and transferring it to the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. The Australian authorities reportedly obtained a court order to access the wallet about three weeks after it was discovered during a drug bust at a residential property. However, upon opening the wallet, it was found to be empty, allegedly having been emptied shortly after the attack.

The wallet was reported to contain 81.62 bitcoins worth $309,000 at the time of the raid in 2019. However, as of the time of writing, it is valued at approximately $4.2 million. Detective Senior Constable Deon Achtypis of the cybercrime unit stated that authorities initially believed a member of the criminal group was responsible for the Bitcoin theft. The police also found a device containing the wallet's seed phrase, which is a sequence of 12 to 24 random words that can be used as a recovery method in case the wallet is stolen or lost.