Police Officer Pleads Not Guilty to Bitcoin Theft Claims

William Wheatley, a cyber crime police officer in Australia, faces legal battles following allegations of crypto fortune theft. 

A few years after William was initially suspected of having stolen a crypto fortune associated with drug trafficking proceeds, William has disclosed plans to fight the allegations and claims innocence over the matter.

William Faces Multiple Charges Over Bitcoin Theft

According to a report from a local media outlet, William had appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Friday, where he was accused of multiple criminal offenses connected to a drug trafficking operation that was raided years back.

During the court hearing, William pleaded not guilty to stealing a Trezor hardware wallet containing Bitcoins that are now worth over $6.3 million. However, he was charged with two more offenses, pointing out that he had tampered with the crime proceeds and was untruthful in obtaining property from the crime investigations.

81.616 Bitcoins Stolen From a Trezor Wallet

The charges stemmed from an incident in Jan 2019, when the Australia Federal Police and Victoria Police joined forces to investigate suspected drug trafficking through postal services. 

The investigations led to a raid that saw authorities present at the scene seize 81.616 bitcoins in Hoppers Crossing as part of Operation Viridian. During the incident, the officers found large quantities of Steroids alongside a Trezor wallet on the scene.

It took three weeks for investigators to get permission to access the wallet, only to discover it had been emptied just four days after the raid. Investigations revealed that a “seed phrase” found at the scene allowed access to the digital wallet.

At the time of the incident, investigators assumed that the crypto fortune, worth $450,000, had been stolen by someone associated with the criminal group. However, two years later, new cryptocurrency tracing tools led them to track the currency to Binance, where they found an IP address that had stolen coins. Surprisingly, this IP address was linked to the Australian police headquarters.

This ticked the beginning of William’s legal saga, as an internal investigation raised suspicions against William. During the investigation, another IP address connected to him through a woman named Ashley Tell was discovered. Furthermore, transactions allegedly traced back to Wheatley’s bank account between 2019 and September 2022.