An officer of the federal police is facing charges in court for allegedly keeping a cryptocurrency fortune that was reportedly confiscated from an online drug-trafficking operation.
William Wheatley is currently undergoing a committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court this week. He is facing charges of theft, dealing with property suspected to be the proceeds of crime, and using information for personal gain.
In December 2022, the suspended federal police officer faced charges from the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, which has since been replaced. Court documents reveal that Wheatley reportedly took 81.616 bitcoins from a cryptocurrency wallet that was discovered during an enquiry into drug and steroid trafficking through the postal system in January 2019.
Providing testimony, Detective Serjeant Deon Achtypis from the Cyber Crime Squad mentioned that he was brought in to help after a raid was carried out on a residence in Hoppers Crossing on 25 January 2019, as part of Operation Viridian. An investigation is currently underway by the Icarus Taskforce, a collaboration between Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police. During the search, significant amounts of “steroid-type” substances were reportedly discovered.
“Detective Sergeant Mark Newlan informed me they were at an address they believed was an illegal steroid dealer,” Detective Achtypis said.
“They had found a live computer … and required cyber crime.”
According to him, his team discovered evidence on an encrypted email service indicating that drug orders had been placed and payments were made using the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Shortly after, the detectives discovered a Trezor-brand hardware cryptocurrency wallet and handed it over to the Icarus detectives.
Three weeks later, Detective Achtypis informed the court that a magistrate had approved the Icarus Taskforce’s request to “rebuild” access to the digital wallet. He claimed to have obtained access on 14 February and discovered that 81.616 bitcoin had been transferred from the wallet just after 5 p.m. on 29 January, four days after the device was confiscated.
Anyone with the “seed phrase”, a minimum 12 random word code, could have rebuilt the wallet access, he said. The sum, valued at approximately $450,000, was sent to two additional digital wallets before becoming untraceable, according to Detective Achtypis.
Currently, the value of the same amount of bitcoin would exceed $6.3 million. After initially suspecting an accomplice of the drug traffickers, investigators reopened the case in 2021 when new tracing tools suggested the possible involvement of a police member.
Detective Achtypis discovered that one of the IP addresses was connected to the former AFP headquarters in Melbourne, and he found it difficult to understand any legitimate reason for this association.
“I formed the opinion that a police member may have been involved in the movement of the cryptocurrency,” he said in a written witness statement.
Craig Gillespie, a cryptocurrency investigator based in Wales, informed the court that the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity had hired him to track down and locate the funds. He verified that from 29 January to 11 April 2019, a total of 28 transactions were conducted from the third wallet across different cryptocurrency platforms.
Gillespie claimed that certain transactions were reportedly linked to deposits made into Wheatley’s bank account from 2019 to September 2022. Referred to as a witness, AFP officer Jesse Wyatt stated that he was the sole federal police officer present at the Hoppers Crossing search on 25 January
He told the court when the cryptocurrency wallet was located he did not know what the “metallic device” was, but contacted Wheatley, who he described as a “specialist” in the AFP’s cyber crime division.
“Hey mate, you ever seen one of these? Maybe a cryptocurrency thing,” he wrote in a text message read to the court.
According to Wheatley’s attorney, Luke Barker, the case against his client is based on circumstantial evidence, and they plan to challenge the actions attributed to Wheatley. The committal hearing, presided over by Magistrate Malcolm Thomas, is ongoing.
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