The New Zealand police were outsmarted by criminals they were pursuing when the lawbreakers stole $45,000 BTC held by the police that would have been used for their covert operation.
This incident has brought up a lot of questions about the police’s competence in handling sensitive operations.
An internal investigation was also launched to look into the police’s procedure and see if there were major lapses that gave criminals the opportunity to steal the funds “under their noses.”
The investigation also aims to find the weak points of the police’s current procedures to craft better ones in the following operations and avoid major blunders from happening again.
Tracking down the bad guys
According to the New Zealand Police’s National Organized Crime Group, it believes the crime group they are investigating is based overseas.
The division also added that there is a high possibility that this crime group is part of a larger group which they will further investigate.
The $45,000 BTC theft came just days after the $250,000 cryptocurrency theft dominated the country’s headlines. In this case, an employee of Cryptopia, an international crypto-exchange, was found guilty of stealing $250,000 worth of crypto from the company.
New Zealand prepares for CBDC
Even with New Zealand’s crypto setbacks, it is not giving up on tapping the opportunities of digital currency. That is why it is now seriously considering the creation of its own Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
The government is now increasing its initiatives to improve its cash and currency system and exploring ways on how CBDC can play a major role in these planned improvements.
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