Australian police reveal how they hacked a crypto wallet containing $6 million.
Date: 2025-10-30 Author: Gabriel Deangelo Categories: IN WORLD
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has shared details of an investigation in which an analyst gained access to a crypto wallet containing digital assets worth approximately $6 million (AUD $9 million). The wallet allegedly belonged to a defendant in a criminal case related to organized crime.
According to AFP, a key role was played by an analyst from the Criminal Asset Confiscation Team (CACT), who managed to decrypt the passphrase encrypted by the owner. Although police did not specify the specific case the wallet was connected to, the agency had previously reported a similar incident: a year ago, crypto assets worth a comparable amount were seized after a similar wallet was hacked.
During a search of the suspect's home, officers found a phone containing a password-protected image containing a set of random numbers. Digital forensics experts suspected the data might be linked to a cryptocurrency wallet. Since the defendant refused to provide the passwords, which is considered a criminal offense in Australia and carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison, the experts had to find a workaround.
According to the AFP commissioner, investigators realized that if they failed to crack the wallet, the defendant would be able to use all of his criminally obtained funds after his release. "We couldn't allow someone involved in illegal schemes to keep his millions after his release," she emphasized.
The phone image displayed numbers organized into groups of six digits, and the analyst discovered over 50 possible combinations. Upon analysis, he realized the wallet owner had used a cipher in which he replaced words with numbers and added extra values. After removing the redundant data, the specialist was able to reconstruct the original 24-word passphrase.
As the analyst noted, some numbers appeared to have been manually altered rather than generated by a program, which helped him understand the encryption logic.
The Commissioner also added that the same specialist had previously assisted police in hacking another crypto wallet, which resulted in the state acquiring assets worth approximately $1.9 million (AUD $3 million).
If the court orders the confiscation of the cryptocurrency from the recently hacked wallet, the funds will be donated to a special fund that finances programs to combat crime and prevent illegal activity.
