A current police officer has appeared in court accused of embezzling and using Bitcoin seized during an investigation.
The Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office Crime Proceeds Recovery Team (head Kim Min-jung) announced on the 28th that it had indicted Mr. A, a male police lieutenant in his 40s affiliated with the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency, on charges including violations of the Special Act on the Prevention of Illegal Transactions of Narcotics and the Act on the Regulation and Punishment of the Concealment of Criminal Proceeds.
Mr. A is suspected of embezzling and using Bitcoin worth approximately 5.19 million Korean won (0.033 BTC) seized during a narcotics investigation around August 2025.
According to the investigation, Mr. A converted the Bitcoin, which was being stored in an electronic wallet created on his mobile phone for investigative convenience, into various types of virtual assets through a method called “chain hopping” (moving virtual assets to a different blockchain network) and then cashed them out.
The prosecution discovered the disappearance of the Bitcoin during the process of confiscating seized items after the finalization of the court’s ruling on the related narcotics case.
A prosecution official stated, “We cannot specify where the embezzled cash was used,” adding, “We will continue to track high-tech virtual asset concealment and money laundering crimes until the end.”