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Australian police find 40,000 stolen Bluey coins

Posted on by L. Dreeye
Australian police find 40,000 stolen Bluey coins

SYDNEY (AP) — Australian police said Wednesday they have recovered more than 40,000 stolen limited-edition coins based on the popular children’s animated series “Bluey.”

The Bluey coins, with a face value of one Australian dollar (65 US cents) each, were found on Tuesday afternoon at a self-storage facility in the Sydney suburb of Wentworthville, police said in a statement.

Bluey is the name of the blue heeler puppy whose adventures with a family of herding dogs living in the Australian city of Brisbane, where the series is filmed, have become popular among children around the world.

The series premiered in Australia in 2018 and began streaming on Disney+ in 2020.

Police said 40,061 of the recovered coins were still in the Royal Australian Mint plastic bags in which they were stolen three months earlier.

On July 12, police were notified that 63,000 coins from an unissued series of coins issued by the National Mint in Canberra had been stolen from a warehouse in the Sydney suburb of Wetherill Park, near where the coins were discovered on July 12. Tuesday.

Police formed Strike Force Bandit to investigate. Bandit is the name of Bluey’s father.

Three people are involved in the theft.

A 27-year-old woman who police say drove two accomplices in the July theft was arrested Tuesday hours before the coins were discovered.

Two men had previously been charged with theft and police were searching for a fourth suspect.

On July 31, police raided a house in Sydney and found 189 coins. They discovered that the seller who sold them was a legitimate coin collector who had innocently bought them for A$1.50 (98 US cents) each. He was not given any compensation for the confiscated coins.

A spokesman for the Royal Australian Mint was unavailable for comment on Wednesday.