Press release error costs South Korea $4.8 million
Digital assets worth about $4.8 million were withdrawn from a confiscated cryptocurrency wallet of South Korea’s National Tax Service, Qazinform News Agency reports.
According to Yonhap, the incident occurred on February 26 during the publication of materials on the results of searches targeting major tax delinquents. A photo attached to the press release showed a mnemonic code required to access the crypto wallet holding the seized assets.
After the image became publicly available, an unknown individual restored access to the wallet. A small amount of ETH was first sent to the address to cover transaction fees, after which about 4 million PRTG tokens were transferred out. The transfers were carried out in several transactions to unknown addresses.
The market value of the withdrawn tokens is estimated at approximately $4.8 million. The agency had earlier noted that the actual potential damage could differ due to the token’s limited liquidity.
The leak was identified following an analysis of fund movements, after which the tax authority activated internal crypto asset tracking tools and referred the case to the police for investigation.
Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb mistakenly distributed bitcoins worth about $166 million to users.