An alleged Bluey coin bandit has been charged by New South Wales police for allegedly stealing over $600,000 worth of limited edition currency.
The Royal Australian Mint’s “dollarbucks” coin collection features Bluey, alongside other characters on the TV show, as part of a special limited release.
Fewer than 100,000 coins have been minted as part of the collection, with three different designs available. They were released via online ballots before being made available at authorised distributors.
The colourful “dollarbucks” feature Bluey herself on one coin, with the Heeler family and the Grannies on two others. The Grannies version contains a reference to a popular episode in which “Oh, mah coins!” is said when one drops some money.
But while the release was intended to be a celebration of the incredibly popular TV show, they have also been the subject of an alleged heist.
NSW police arrested a man on Wednesday after investigating a robbery at a warehouse in Wetherill Park, where 63,000 $1 Bluey coins had been stolen.
Police will allege in court the 47-year-old was an employee at a warehouse where he located and stole the Australian Mint packages from the back of a truck on 23 June.
Police will also allege the man sold the coins online only hours after he allegedly stole them, with the coins currently being sold for 10 times their original value.
Det Supt Joseph Doueihi said investigations had initially led them to a genuine coin collector who was selling some of the dollarbucks.
“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.”
Doueihi added 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 said it was working with police on the investigation.
Officers attached to Fairfield city police area command had initially responded to a report that a large amount of currency had been stolen, before the State Crime Command Robbery and Serious Crime Squad launched an investigation into the incident under the name Strike Force Bandit.
Strike Force Bandit then conducted extensive investigations into the alleged banditry, and executed a search warrant at a property in Sefton on 31 July.
During the search, detectives located and seized 189 unreleased limited edition Bluey coins as well as some electronic devices, police said.
Police said the 47-year-old was subsequently arrested in Westmead at about 7am Wednesday, and charged with three counts of break and enter commit.
He was refused bail and was expected to appear at the Parramatta local court on Wednesday.
