Man in Australia accused of stealing £300,000 worth of limited-edition coins celebrating TV show Bluey

Special police unit dubbed ‘Strike Force Bandit’ set up after 63,000 coins went missing from depot

The coins featured the popular character Bluey and were due to be released into general circulation next month (AP Photo/Cheyanne Mumphrey)

A man in Australia has been charged with stealing more than £300,000 worth of limited edition royal mintcoins commemorating the hit children’s TV show Bluey.

First released in 2018, the Australian animated series was one of last year’s most-streamed television shows in the United States and is currently the 14th highest rated TV show of all time, according to the website IMDb.

To celebrate its meteoric rise, the country’s royal mint has been producing commemorative coins linked to the series. The coins, produced by the Australian mint, are legal tender and resemble regular A$1 coins albeit with one face featuring cartoon dog “Bluey”.

Bags of commemorative Bluey coins were seized by police (New South Wales Police/AFP via Getty Images)

The coins had been due to enter general circulation next month, but are now selling online for 10 times their face value, according to police, after some 63,000 limited edition coins were stolen from a secure warehouse in the Sydney suburb of Wetherill Park.

While a similar run of commemorative Bluey coins previously sold for A$20 on the mint’s official website, one eBay seller was charging close to A$600 for a pack of three.

A special police unit dubbed “Strike Force Bandit” was set up to investigate the alleged theft, and a 47-year-old man has now been charged with stealing the coins.

Police said the man worked at the warehouse where the coins were being stored for two days on their way to Brisbane, and allege that he stole the coins – which weighed half a tonne in total – from the back of a lorry with the help of two male accomplices.

(New South Wales Police/AFP via Getty Images)

The coins were then sold online within hours, despite not being discovered missing at the Brisbane depot for a further 10 days.

While a raid in June on a house in Sydney recovered 189 coins, Detective Superintendent Joseph Doueihi told reporters that the vast bulk of the coins are already in circulation.

The coins were found at the home of a legitimate collector who had advertised the coins online after he had “innocently come into possession” of the stolen items, Det Sup Doueihi was reported as saying.

The senior police officer told a press conference this week that he was not initially aware of the show’s popularity, but vowed to try to get the coins back into circulation.

“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,” Det Sup Doueihi said.

Those who have received a Bluey coin do not need to surrender it to police, he said.

The suspect was arrested on Wednesday morning and denied bail prior to a scheduled hearing at Parramatta Local Court later that day.

Additional reporting by Reuters