The Gwangju District Public Prosecutors Office sold all 320 Bitcoins (BTC) recovered from the hackers and returned them to the national treasury.
bitcoin heist
According to an article in the Chosun Ilbo, the Gwangju District Public Prosecutors Office announced on March 10 that it had “sold all 320.8 Bitcoins at market price and returned 31.5 billion won to the national treasury.” The bitcoins were originally confiscated from Ms. A, the daughter of an illegal gambling organization operator worth 390 billion won, but were lost during the transfer of the confiscated bitcoins to the national treasury. They were later recovered on February 18, according to a report in South Korea’s Digital Asset newspaper, saying, “The bitcoins were returned to the existing wallets, and the prosecutors took control of the keys without their knowledge.”
From a phishing fiasco to a complete recovery
The recovered Bitcoins were cleared on domestic exchanges, converted into approximately 31 billion won, and are now transferred to the national treasury. Prosecutors say an internal investigation into how the assets were lost in the first place is still ongoing, but they stress that the sale was carried out in stages over an 11-day period from February 24 to March 6 to avoid confusion in market prices.
repeated incidents
This is not the first time South Korea has experienced a major custody failure. In February, authorities accidentally leaked the private keys of public documents, leading to the theft of 4 million tokens worth approximately $4.8 million. These repeated incidents clearly raise difficult questions about whether the government, at least the SK government, is prepared to protect confiscated digital assets.
Notably, South Korea is rapidly building a legal and operational strategy for seized cryptocurrencies, with the Supreme Court recently ruling that Bitcoins held on domestic exchanges can be legally treated as “subjects of seizure” under the Criminal Procedure Code.
For traders, the Gwangju sale is yet another reminder that law enforcement liquidations are now a structural source of BTC supply, and for policymakers it highlights that seizing coins is only half the battle, and that securing coins and exiting positions without disrupting markets is rapidly becoming a new type of sovereign market risk.
BTC's price trends to the upside on the daily chart. Source: BTCUSD on Tradingview
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