SINGAPORE — A former SAF captain in Singapore was charged with breaking into a condominium to gain access to 1.7 million in USDT cryptocurrency.

The accused,Teo Rong Xuan, 34, took a picture of a 'seed phrase' written on a piece of paper that would allow him to login to a cryptocurrency cold wallet owned by his victim (a Chinese national).

Teo was at the time serving as a captain in Singapore’s Naval Diving Unit.

He then withdrew the 1.7 million in USDT (roughly worth around RM7.1 million at press time), converting some of it to USD and transferring some to an online gambling website.

Teo said he had stolen the funds due to suffering "huge monetary losses" after the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange and hedge fund FTX trading.

The victim after realising the theft of the USDT tokens hired blockchain security company SlowMist to track the funds' wheareabouts where they found links to Teo's cryptocurrency wallet.

Teo then confessed to the theft and was charged in court in 2023, and is due to be sentenced on November 14.