According to CryptoPotato, a federal police officer in Australia is facing legal proceedings in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court for allegedly stealing confiscated cryptocurrency from an online drug trafficking syndicate. The officer, William Wheatley, was initially charged in December 2022 and is accused of stealing 81.616 Bitcoin from a cryptocurrency wallet found during a January 2019 investigation into drug and steroid trafficking via the postal system.
During the raid, law enforcement discovered significant quantities of substances resembling steroids, an encrypted email service allegedly used for drug transactions, and a Trezor-brand hardware crypto wallet. The wallet was handed over to the Icarus detectives, who later obtained approval from a magistrate to regain access to it. Cyber Crime Squad Detective Sergeant Deon Achtypis found that 81.616 Bitcoin had been transferred from the wallet shortly after its seizure, with the stolen amount valued at around $450,000 at the time. Today, the same quantity of Bitcoin would be valued at over $6.3 million.
Investigators initially suspected an associate of the drug traffickers orchestrated the movement of the funds, but the case was reopened in 2021 when new tracing tools suggested the involvement of a police officer. Detective Achtypis discovered that one of the relevant IP addresses was linked to the then-AFP headquarters in Melbourne, leading him to speculate that a police officer might have been involved in the crypto transfer. Crypto investigator Craig Gillespie confirmed that between January 29 and April 11, 2019, 28 transactions were conducted from the wallet on various crypto platforms, with some allegedly traced back to withdrawals deposited into Mr. Wheatley’s bank account between 2019 and September 2022.
