Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People's Party chairman Ke Wenzhe has been detained since September 5 on suspicion of taking bribes in the Jinhua City case, according to the Taipei District Court's ruling under the Anti-Corruption Act.
BlockTempo previously reported that in September, the New Taipei District Prosecutors' Office seized two mysterious safes belonging to Ke Wenzhe's wife Chen Peiqing, one of which contained a "cold wallet" of a virtual currency, suspected of involving illegal cash flows between Ke Wenzhe and Shen Qingjing of the Weijing Group. At the time, the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office immediately denied the report, saying it "does not correspond to the facts at all".
However, the media reported yesterday (21st) that it had recently received a tip that Ke Wenzhe did indeed have a cold wallet, and that the New Taipei District Prosecutors' Office had seized it in two major searches on August 30 and September 27, and it has now been turned over to the Agency Against Corruption and is currently being decrypted by the New Taipei District Prosecutors' Office.
The reason the New Taipei District Prosecutors' Office kept it secret and even denied it externally is that "the investigators have not yet found the PIN code and seed phrase of the cold wallet". Once these two key passwords are found, they can easily open the cold wallet, trace the transaction records on the chain, and compare the suspicious cash flow to see if it involves bribery.
Ke Wenzhe's cold wallet was seized! But the key private key was not found
However, to open a cold wallet, a PIN code is usually required, and if the PIN is lost, the cold wallet can be restored remotely on any device using a 12 to 24 word seed phrase. However, the New Taipei District Prosecutors' Office did not find the seed phrase, and Ke Wenzhe did not provide the PIN code, so the prosecutors are still in the stage of trying to decipher it, and the investigation of the crypto case has reached an impasse.
Cybersecurity expert Liu Yanbo told Eastern Broadcasting that if you want to brute-force a cold wallet, the PIN code only allows you to try 9 times, and if all 9 attempts are wrong, the cold wallet may automatically erase the public and private key data in memory, and it is also difficult to crack from the seed phrase.
It is reported that Ke Wenzhe may have entrusted the seed phrase to a third party he trusts even before the Jinhua City case broke out, and the outside world speculates that the person is likely his personal accountant "Tangerine" Xu Zhiyu, and she left for Japan shortly after the New Taipei District Prosecutors' Office launched a major investigation into the Jinhua City case, and has been staying there until now, which has raised suspicions. The New Taipei District Prosecutors' Office confirmed earlier today that Xu Zhiyu has been listed as a defendant in the political donation case, but has not yet issued a warrant, calling on her to return to Taiwan as soon as possible to assist in the investigation.
Lawyer denies that Ke Wenzhe was found with a cold wallet, or was detained
Last month, Ke Wenzhe changed his lawyer, appointing Xiao Yihong, who has a cybersecurity "white hat hacker" certification, and the outside world believes that one of the main reasons Ke chose Xiao was to ask him to help deal with the cold wallet. However, Xiao denied this, saying he did not know whether the investigators had found Ke Wenzhe's cold wallet, and he had not assisted Ke in dealing with the cold wallet.
The New Taipei District Prosecutors' Office also responded to the matter of Ke Wenzhe being found with a cold wallet, saying that the case is still under investigation, and based on the principle of non-disclosure of investigations, it cannot confirm or comment on this. A lawyer said the prosecutors may use the need for more time to decrypt the cold wallet as a reason to apply to the Taipei District Court for an extension of Ke Wenzhe's detention. Ke Wenzhe's two-month detention period will expire on November 5.
Further reading: Does Ke Wenzhe's 1500 refer to ETH? Genius Ashui on a political talk show: 110 million is more reasonable
Genius Ashui: If Ke received USDT, without the seed phrase it can still be frozen
And crypto KOL Genius Ashui commented on a SET News political talk show on Monday that if Ke Wenzhe's crypto wallet contains Tether USDT, even if the prosecutors don't have the private key, they can still apply to Tether to freeze the assets to prevent Ke's associates from restoring the wallet with the seed phrase and transferring the crypto assets privately.
If Ke Wenzhe is actually found to have a Bitcoin in his wallet, as long as the private key is not revealed, he cannot be seized.
But if it's the so-called "Tether", if the relevant judicial and investigative authorities say "this Tether is related to the proceeds of money laundering", then they can write to the Tether company to freeze the funds.
Regarding this view, an anonymous industry expert told BlockTempo that if the prosecutors cannot provide specific evidence linking Ke Wenzhe to the USDT in the wallet, it would be difficult to successfully apply to Tether for a freeze. He also believes that if the BlockTempo report is true, "the key is whether the on-chain cash flow is connected to the criminal", so the prosecutors and the Agency Against Corruption are fully investigating Ke Wenzhe's cold wallet private key.
In any case, the case is still under investigation, and much of the information is speculation on the internet and in the media, and cannot be verified. BlockTempo reminds readers:
"Any person shall be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law."
