National Tax Service leaks crypto wallet 'master key' while touting achievements... Police launch preliminary probe

According to Financial News, police have launched a full-fledged investigation after allegations emerged that roughly 6.9 billion won worth of tokens were moved following the exposure of a core password for a virtual asset wallet seized by the National Tax Service (NTS).
On the 28th, the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) Cyber Terror Investigation Unit began a preliminary inquiry after receiving a request from the NTS to investigate the suspected theft of virtual assets from a seized wallet, according to police.
Earlier, the NTS issued a press release announcing that it had seized a virtual asset wallet from a taxpayer with large unpaid taxes. In the process, it released a photo of a hardware crypto wallet, a USB-type storage device. The image showed, in plain view, the mnemonic phrase needed to recover the wallet.
This came to light after Cho Jae-woo, head of the Blockchain Research Institute at Hansung University, claimed on social media the previous day, "From the mnemonic that the National Tax Service disclosed in its press release, I confirmed that 4 million PRTG tokens, worth about 4.8 million dollars (around 6.9 billion won), were stolen."
A mnemonic is a set of key words used to recover a virtual asset wallet and effectively serves as a "master key" granting access to the wallet. Even without the physical hardware device, anyone who knows the mnemonic can access the wallet.
Police are currently analyzing the path and transaction history of the virtual assets to determine whether a theft actually occurred and to clarify the detailed circumstances. Depending on the outcome, the case could grow beyond a simple security incident into a broader issue of trust in how government agencies manage virtual assets.
A police official stated, "Given the seriousness of the matter, we launched a preliminary inquiry as soon as the case was reported," adding, "We will conduct the investigation swiftly."
yesji@fnnews.com Kim Ye-ji Reporter