New South Wales Police have charged an alleged Blueycoin robber with stealing $600,000 worth of limited edition banknotes.
Bluey and other characters from the hit TV show will appear in the Royal Australian Mint’s “Dollar Bucks” coin collection as part of a special limited release.
Less than 100,000 Coins were minted as part of the collection.There were three different designs available, which were announced through an online vote and then sold at authorized retailers.
The colorful “Dollarbucks” include one coin featuring Bluey himself, and two featuring the Healer family and Granny’s. The Granny’s version includes a reference to the popular episode where, when you drop money, you hear “Oh, mah coins!”
But while the release was meant to celebrate a wildly popular TV show, it also became the subject of an alleged robbery.
New South Wales Police have arrested a man after investigating a robbery at a warehouse in Wetherill Park on Wednesday in which 63,000 $1 Bluey coins were stolen.
Police will allege in court that the 47-year-old man was a warehouse employee who found and stole an Australian Mint parcel from the back of a truck on June 23.
Police also allege the man sold the coins online just hours after stealing them, and that the coins are now selling for ten times their original price.
Detective Superintendent Joseph Doueihi said investigations initially revealed that genuine coin collectors were selling some of the dollar bills.
“At that stage, investigations revealed that the person selling those coins was a legitimate coin collector and had acquired those items innocently,” he said.
“Further enquiries have led to the identification of a 47-year-old man from Westmead who was involved in the theft and we allege he was an employee of the secure storage facility at the time of the theft.”
“We intend to allege that this male removed those coins to an unsecured area within the storage facility and then assisted in the theft of those coins.”
Doueihi added that the majority of the 63,000 stolen coins “remain unrecovered” and remain “in general circulation”.
“If you are one of the lucky people to have come across these coins we are not asking you to part with them. The coin is currently in circulation and presents no problem to us, but if you have any information about where large quantities of the coins are being stored please contact police as soon as possible.”
The Australian Mint said it was working with police on the investigation.
Officers from the Fairfield Police District initially responded to a report of a large amount of cash being stolen, but the State Crimes Division’s Robbery and Major Crimes Unit, known as “Strike Force Bandit,” began investigating the incident.
Strikeforce Bandit then carried out an extensive investigation into the alleged burglary and executed a search warrant at a property in Sefton on 31 July.
During the investigation, detectives discovered and seized 189 unreleased limited edition Blui Coins and several electronic devices, police said.
Police said the 47-year-old man was arrested in Westmead at about 7am on Wednesday and charged with three counts of burglary.
He was refused bail and was due to appear in Parramatta Local Court on Wednesday.
