Authorities in South Korea recovered more than $5M in stolen cryptocurrency, but most of it was stolen again after officials accidentally posted the wallet’s recovery code in a public press release.
The mistake happened when the National Tax Service shared photos from a February raid targeting 124 high-value tax delinquents. In one image, the recovery phrase for a seized crypto wallet — a backup password made of random words — was visible.
Thieves quickly spotted the code and used it to access the wallet, stealing about $4.8M of the recovered funds.
The raid had also uncovered stolen USB drives containing crypto assets, along with luxury items including five watches, 19 designer bags, jewelry, and other valuables worth about 400 million won (around $300,000). The crypto holdings themselves were valued at roughly $5.6M.
Experts criticized the blunder, saying it showed a lack of basic understanding of virtual assets. Professor Cho Jae-woo of Hansung University compared it to “advertising your wallet and inviting people to take the money.”
South Korean officials later issued a public apology, admitting the photo was shared with the media without realizing it exposed sensitive information.