South Korea’s Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office sold 320.8 BTC and sent 31.6 billion won ($21.5 million) in proceeds to the national treasury, according to local media reports.
Sale details
Chosun Ilbo reported the office liquidated the bitcoin in batches over 11 days, from Feb. 24 to March 6.
The bitcoin was originally seized in a raid on an international gambling platform that operated from 2018 to 2021.
Prosecutors said the operators hid criminal proceeds by converting them into bitcoin.
Phishing theft and return
The Gwangju office previously lost control of the seized bitcoin in August 2025 after officials managing the assets were tricked by a phishing website.
The theft was not discovered until December 2025.
Last month, the hacker sent the 320.8 BTC back to an authority-controlled wallet.
Prosecutors said they had blocked the wallet’s access to various liquidation channels before the bitcoin was returned.
Other agency lapses
The incident followed other reported security failures involving seized or government-held crypto assets.
A nationwide internal investigation found Seoul’s Gangnam Police Station had lost 22 BTC stored in a USB cold wallet since 2021, with the device itself reportedly never stolen.
The National Tax Service also faced criticism after a report allegedly exposed a wallet recovery phrase, after which 4 million Pre-Retogeum (PRTG) tokens—reported as theoretically worth $4.8 million—were moved to an unidentified address.
Authorities said the hacker in the Gwangju case remains at large and the investigation will continue.
