PANews reported on October 29 that, according to Decrypt, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Krissy Barrett revealed in a speech at the National Press Club that a data analyst from the AFP Criminal Asset Recovery Task Force (CACT) successfully cracked a suspect's cryptocurrency wallet and recovered approximately $6 million (about 9 million Australian dollars) worth of crypto assets.
Police stated that the analyst discovered, through manual identification of counterfeit digit patterns, that the suspect had deliberately added numbers to the mnemonic phrase to obstruct investigation. After manually removing the first digit, a seed phrase of 24 words was successfully recovered, unlocking the wallet's funds. The analyst subsequently used another method to crack a second wallet, recovering approximately $1.9 million (AUD 3 million).
The case is part of Operation Kraken, a police operation targeting networks using encryption technology for organized crime worldwide. If the court ultimately orders forfeiture, the funds will be deposited into a federal account for Australian crime prevention programs.
