A Sydney man has been arrested and charged by police for allegedly stealing more than $600K worth of coins from a warehouse. Why were the coins so coveted you ask? Because they had Bluey on them, obviously.
We’ve all grown to fear adult Disney fans, but it seems adult Bluey fans are an entirely different breed. First it was scalpers selling $19 gnomes for $900, and now one man has been charged for allegedly stealing and selling 600,000 worth of unreleased limited edition Bluey coins.
The change featuring designs of the internationally successful children’s cartoon was announced by the Royal Australian Mint in June, with a total of 100,000 coins set to enter circulation in September.
However some coins may have hit the market early, with police reporting that 63,000 of the “dollar-bucks” were stolen from a warehouse in Sydney’s west in June.
NSW Police quickly set up “Strike Force Bandit” to investigate the coins’ disappearance, with the name Bandit being a reference to the popular four-legged father from Bluey.
Which a completely missed opportunity, because as everyone knows Bluey’s mum Chilli is an airport sniffer dog, and has a much closer connection to law enforcement. NSW Police are clearly fake fans.
However Bluey‘s creator and executive producer Daley Pearson seemed to be a fan of the name, making a cheeky post on X sharing the funny news.
Strike Force Bandit 🐶 pic.twitter.com/iEYJgOKOF9
— Daley Pearson (@Daley_Pearson) August 7, 2024
Police arrest alleged Bluey coin bandit
Steven John Neilson, a 47-year-old warehouse worker, was arrested on Wednesday morning after police located some of the coins from a collector who had “innocently” come to possess some of the missing money. They were then traced back to Neilson.
“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,” stated Detective Superintendent Joseph Doueihi.
Police will allege in court that the man moved the coins from the secure warehouse where he worked, and then was assisted by two other individuals in the theft of the highly-coveted change.
He then allegedly sold the Bluey coins online for as much as 10x their original worth ($1), just hours after the heist.
The other two Bluey-buck-bandits have not yet been found by police — and neither has a majority of the 63,000 missing coins.
Doueihi stated that detectives suspect the coins are prematurely in circulation. Sydney Morning Herald reported that the limited-edition coins have been seen on eBay for as much as $26 per coin.
Though police have called for the public to assist in locating where the coins are being sold, they are not asking people who have come to possess them to give them back.
“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,” Doueihi said.
“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.”
Neilson has been charged with three counts of breaking and entering and committing serious indictable offences. He faced Parramatta Local Court on Wednesday and has been denied bail.
[Image: Nine]
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