An expensive mistake has cost the South Korean government millions. ### Public Exposure Leads to Crypto Heist Someone seized the opportunity to steal $4.4 million in crypto assets after **South Korea’s National Tax Service** publicly exposed the mnemonic recovery phrase of a seized cryptocurrency wallet. The funds were stored in a **Ledger** cold wallet seized during law enforcement raids targeting 124 high-value tax evaders. These raids resulted in the confiscation of digital assets worth 8.1 billion won (approximately $5.6 million). ### Operational Security Failure When announcing the success of the operation, the agency released photos of a Ledger device, a popular hardware wallet for crypto storage and management. However, the images also showed a handwritten note of the wallet recovery phrase, which serves as the master key that allows restoring the assets to another device. The authorities failed to redact this crucial information, allowing anyone to transfer the assets in the cold wallet to their own account. Reportedly, shortly after the press release was published, 4 million Pre-Retogeum (PRTG) tokens, worth approximately $4.8 million at the time, were transferred out of the confiscated wallet to a new address. This incident underscores the critical importance of operational security, especially when dealing with sensitive cryptographic information.