Today's award goes to police and tax authorities in South Korea for an epic blunder.
Soon after South Korean police posted a press release boasting about seizing $5.6 million worth of cryptocurrency from 124 wealthy tax evaders, cops realized that they had mistakenly posted images that made it possible for a thief to quickly steal most of the seized assets.
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Clearly legible in the photo, the note contained a complete mnemonic recovery phrase that anyone can use as a master key to move assets off the cold wallet to a new wallet without any additional PIN or permissions required.
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It’s possible that whoever took the cryptocurrency just seized on an opportunity after seeing the cops’ failure to redact the images while scrolling through the National Tax Service’s press releases at dawn. It’s also possible that bad actors are closely monitoring South Korean police cryptocurrency announcements, following what The Block reported was “a series of crypto custody lapses.”
There's more at the link.
OK, I have to admit, that's a special kind of stupid. Boasting about seizing over $5M from a felon - then posting clues enough to allow another criminal to steal what the cops had just recovered? Why do I never have the luck to come across photographs like that when I need them?
Peter
It wouldnt be that unlikely that one of the people posting it left it in on purpose to have an alibi, and then grabbed the content right after posting the photo, before anyone else could.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting possibility but could the photo have been a 'honey trap'?
ReplyDeleteThieves stealing from thieves stealing from thieves…. Where will it end?😎
ReplyDeletethere are so many potential twists this could take that I wouldn't even hazard a guess at how it went down.
ReplyDeleteinside job with cover up is a great theory.
stupidity and outside people taking advantage is good also.
honey pot setup to nab someone sounds fun to.
wild wild west.