Back in June, we brought the exciting news that the Royal Australian Mint planned to release a limited run of Bluey Dollarbucks. They’re dollar-sized gold coins, stamped with iconic characters from the show. They work as legal tender and as also as highly sought-after collectibles.
Police will allege in court a 47-year-old man was an employee at a warehouse where he located and stole the Australian Mint packages from the back of a truck on 23 June, 2024. These packages, containing $63,000 worth of the limited-edition Bluey Dollarbuck collection,
Police will also allege that the same man then listed and sold the stolen coins online just hours after he allegedly stole them. Many of the coins being sold or 10 times their original value.
Strike Force Bandit Solves The Case
A Daring Theft
Police were made aware of the theft in early July. In a daring, movie-worthy robbery, 500kg pallets of the freshly minted coins were allegedly stolen off the back of a truck, bound for a Brisbane depot, by a former warehouse employee.
According to police, they were stored in a Sydney warehouse for two days before being moved.
Strike Force Bandit Established
NSW Police have a reputation for their tongue-in-cheek social media humour. Learning they named the team looking for the missing coins Strike Force Bandit (after the popular pup’s father) does not come as a surprise.
The Robbery & Serious Crime Squad didn’t take long to make an arrest. The coins were discovered stolen on July 3rd and, after an extensive investigation, a warrant was served at a Sefton property, resulting in an arrest of a 47-year-old male. He was charged with three break-and-enter offences.
An Unsuspecting Collector Caught In The Crossfire
Around 1,000 (of the 63,000 coins) have been recovered, including 189 coins found at the home of an innocent coin collector. It is believed he purchased the coins online and was unaware they were stolen.
The thief attempted to sell the coins online for more than ten times their value. It’s thought the remaining coins are in general circulation. The alleged thief was denied bail when he appeared in Paramatta Court.
Det Supt Joseph Doueihi from NSW Police said that most of the 63,000 stolen coins “remain outstanding” and remain in “general circulation.”
“If you are one of those lucky people to have come across one of those coins, we don’t ask that you surrender that coin. It’s in circulation now, and that’s no issue to us, but if you have information where bulk quantities of these coins are stored, we ask that you contact police as soon as possible.”
The Royal Australian Mint has said that it was working with police on the investigation.
Just one quick look on eBay and we can easily see more examples of these coins being resold online.
Det Supt Joseph Doueihi from NSW Police said their investigations had initially led them to the home of a genuine coin collector who had listed some of the stolen dollarbucks for sale.
“Our investigation at that stage identified that person that was selling those coins was a legitimate coin collector and had innocently come into possession of those items,” he said.
“Further investigations identified a 47-year-old male from a Westmead address that was involved in the theft. We will allege that this particular male was an employee of the secure storage facility at the time of the theft.”
“We will allege that this particular male facilitated the movement of those coins into an area that is not secured within that storage facility, and then facilitated the theft of those coins.”
“We don’t know what he sold them for, but we know that as soon as they were stolen, they were offloaded almost immediately.”
“The theft of these coins have deprived a lot of young children and members of the community from having access to these coins, so we’re doing our absolute best to try to recover these coins and put them back into circulation,” he said
Previous Bluey limited edition coins sold for incredible money on reseller sites like eBay, Gumtree and Facebook marketplace. They were hotly contested in the Royal Australian Mint Bluey Dollarbuck Ballot and quickly offloaded for resale at many times the original value.
Investigations continue
The alleged thief was denied bail when he appeared in Paramatta Court. Police believe there were two people involved in the theft.
They urge anyone with information or knowledge about large quantities of the coins to come forward or contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or https://nsw.crimestoppers.com.au.
Doueihi said it was a ‘Bingo moment’ when they came across the coins in the hands of a legitimate collector.
“If the show’s producers decide to make an episode on this, that would be fine,” he added.
