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Australian authorities deciphered a encrypted cryptocurrency wallet backup containing 9 million Australian dollars ($5.9 million).
Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Krissy Barrett characterized the achievement as “astounding work” during a Wednesday address, attributing the success to a data scientist who has gained recognition within the agency as a “crypto safecracker.”
During the inquiry into a supposed “well-connected alleged offender” who amassed cryptocurrency by marketing “a tech-type product to purported criminals,” the AFP discovered password-protected notes on his smartphone. Upon closer inspection, law enforcement also uncovered an image featuring random numerals and terms, Barrett stated.
Barrett indicated that the numbers were categorized into six groups with over 50 permutations, and the AFP digital forensics team “ascertained it might be associated with a crypto wallet.” The suspect reportedly declined to surrender the keys to his cryptocurrency wallet, an act that could lead to a 10-year sentence in Australia.
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“We understood that if we were unable to access the crypto wallet, and if the alleged perpetrator was convicted, upon their release, he would exit prison a multi-millionaire, purely from the gains of organized crime,” Barrett remarked. “For our team members, that was not an acceptable conclusion.”
Method of code decryption
One of AFP’s data specialists noticed that the alleged criminal “attempted to formulate a crypto distraction in how the numbers were arranged.” To decode the 24-word seed phrase, he had to eliminate the initial numeral from each series.
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The data specialist expressed that “some of the numeric sequences felt incorrect and appeared to be non-computer-generated.” He added that those sequences “seemed as though a human had altered the arrangement by appending numbers to the forefront of some sequences.”
This event was not the first instance of cryptocurrency recovery for the AFP’s digital forensics division. In a different case, the same unnamed data scientist assisted in reclaiming over $3 million in digital assets employing another deciphering method.
In both instances, the cryptocurrency was confiscated by the AFP-led Criminal Assets Confiscation Taskforce. If the court mandates the funds to be confiscated, the money will be transferred to a commonwealth account and redistributed by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke for crime prevention efforts.
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