Prosecutors recover $22 million worth of lost Bitcoin

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South Korean prosecutors say they’ve found $22 million worth of Bitcoin they had “lost” to a phishing site operator.

Officials in the city of Gwangju sparked outrage in January when they admitted they had lost control of the 320 confiscated Bitcoin they had been holding in five USB-powered cold wallets in a sealed vault. The furore escalated when police in Seoul admitted losing $2 million worth of Bitcoin in similar circumstances.

“We plan to conduct a thorough investigation to clearly explain the full details of the case,” a Gwangju prosecution official said, South Korean newspaper Munhwa Ilbo reported.

Crypto-related crime is on the rise in South Korea and elsewhere in the world.

A security expert this month warned crypto owners they should learn how to fight as crypto-hungry criminals become ever more violent in their efforts to steal other people’s tokens.

Lost and found

The Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office said it had first discovered the Bitcoin was missing on January 16.

Officials say prosecution staffers attempted to use an online wallet checking tool during an August 2025 audit. This tool, however, turned out to be a phishing platform that allowed its operators to automatically drain all five wallets of their contents.

Prosecutors said they “quickly identified” the phishing website’s crypto wallet. They then asked all domestic and major international exchanges to block all transactions made using this wallet.

They also launched a probe into the suspected operator of the phishing site and various related companies.

Prosecutors confiscated the cold wallets during a November 2021 investigation into the suspected operator of an illegal online gambling site.

The wallets were found in the possession of the suspect’s daughter, who is also facing criminal charges.

The trials of these two suspects are still ongoing in Gwangju. Following the revelations, prosecution and police offices around the country were ordered to audit cold wallets to ensure no more confiscated crypto had gone missing.