A federal police officer is currently facing legal proceedings in Melbourne Magistrates Court for allegedly stealing virtual currency seized from an online drug trafficking syndicate.
The trial, presided over by Justice Malcolm Thomas, is currently underway, with the defendant's lawyer saying the incident was “circumstantial” and that he intended to contest the charges.
Code of drug trafficking investigation revealed
Federal police officer William Wheatley, who is currently suspended, was first indicted in December 2022. According to court documents, Wheatley is accused of stealing 81.616 bitcoins from a cryptocurrency wallet discovered in January during an investigation into drug and steroid trafficking through the postal system. 2019.
During the raid, law enforcement found large amounts of steroid-like substances and an encrypted email service that was allegedly paid for in Bitcoin and used for drug trafficking. A Trezor branded hardware crypto wallet was subsequently discovered and handed over to Detective Icarus.
About three weeks later, the Icarus Task Force in charge of the attack received permission from a magistrate to regain access to the digital wallet. Sergeant Deon Aktipis, a Cyber Crime Squad detective who was called to assist after the attack, accessed the wallet on February 14 and removed 81.616 Bitcoins from the wallet just after 5pm on January 29, four days after the device was seized. discovered that the money had been transferred. .
The stolen money, valued at around $450,000 at the time, was transferred to two more digital wallets before traceability was lost. Today, the same amount of Bitcoin would be worth more than his $6.3 million.
Investigation reveals police involvement
Investigators initially suspected that someone associated with a drug trafficker orchestrated the transfer of funds. However, the case was reopened in 2021 after new tracking tools implicated police officers.
Detective Aktipis discovered that one of the IP addresses involved was linked to the then-AFP headquarters in Melbourne, leading officers to suspect that it was involved in the transfer of virtual currency.
Wales-based cryptocurrency investigator Craig Gillespie was hired by the Australian Law Enforcement Integrity Commission to track and trace the funds. Gillespie admitted that between January 29, 2019 and April 11, 2019, 28 transactions were made from his wallet on various crypto platforms. Some of these transactions allegedly trace back to withdrawals made to Mr Wheatley's bank account between 2019 and September 2022.
During the proceedings, AFP Officer Jesse Wyatt testified that he was the only federal officer present at the search at Hoppers Crossing on January 25th. He admitted that when the cryptocurrency wallet was discovered, he contacted Mr Wheatley as he was unaware of its nature. He is seeking assistance as an “expert” from AFP's cybercrime division.
