Bluey Coin TheftOne of the most popular children’s shows in the world, Bluey appeals to both the young and old with its themes of family values, engaging storylines and heart-warming humor. When Australian mint planned to release coins featuring characters from the animated show, someone decided to carry out a Bluey coin heist, which saw over 60,000 of the dollarbucks stolen.
When the Australian animated children’s television show Bluey first aired on ABC Kids in October 2018, it premiered to significant public praise and soon earned a devoted fan base. The show, created and written by Joe Brumm, features an anthropomorphic family of dogs, that includes parents Bandit, the father, and Chilli, the mother, along with their children Bluey and Bingo.
The show centres around the everyday adventures of Bluey and Bingo, with their friends, as they navigate everyday situations with their family and friends. With almost 200 episodes, the Australian show has proved extremely popular with younger viewers, who are the intended target audience, as well as garnering older fans with it’s strong humor and messages on constructive parenting.
Indeed, the role of the father, Bandit, who enjoys playing with his young daughter Bluey and Bingo and teaching them life lessons during their games, has proven popular as a positive father figure who appeals to adults as much as he does children. The show has received critical acclaim, with many reviewers praising it for the scripts, voice acting and quirky comedy.
By 2024, Bluey had become one of the most streamed television programmes in the US, and according to the IMDb, it is currently the 14th highest-rated show of all time. So great is its appeal that Bluey has been nominated and won a host of awards, including the best children’s program five years in a row.
The popular children’s show has spawned a variety of other media, such as books, a live stage show and an assortment of other merchandise. In June 2024, the Royal Australian Mint released a commemorative $1 coin that featured designs of Bluey and his family. With only 30,000 of each being minted, these coins were uncirculated and could only be purchased directly from the mint.
On June 23, 2024, a delivery of Bluey commemorative coins was stolen from a warehouse in the Sydney suburb of Wetherill Park, where they were being stored for two days before a planned transfer to a storage facility in Brisbane where they were due to enter circulation two months later. The theft, which saw the haul of Australian Mint packages, weighing some 500kg, taken from a pallet on the back of a truck.
Within hours of the robbery, the gold-colored Bluey coins were being offered for sale online, where they began selling for as much as ten times their face value. One seller on eBay offered a pack of three coins for almost 600 Australian dollars. It took several days until employees at the warehouse realized that the pallet of coins was missing.
Officers attached to Fairfield city police area command responded to the theft, which reportedly involved as many as 60,000 limited edition coins, worth an estimated A$600,000. Police began looking into any potential suspects who might have had knowledge and opportunity to steal the coins.
In response to the Bluey coin theft, the New South Wales Robbery and Serious Crime Squad formed taskforce called ‘Strike Force Bandit,’ naming the investigation after the father of Bluey in the children’s television show. Shortly after the theft, police recovered 189 of the coins in a raid after executing a search warrant at a property in Sefton on July 31.
The following month, on August 7, police arrested 47-year-old Steven John Nielsen after a raid on his Sydney home. Nielsen, who was an employee at the warehouse, was charged with three counts of breaking and entering and was denied bail when he appeared in Parramatta Court later the same day of his arrest.
Nassar Kanj, 44, was arrested on August 20, 2024, at a home in Canley Heights, Western Sydney. Police learned that Kanj had acted as Nielsen’s accomplice in the alleged heist, and he was charged with three counts of aggravated break and enter, commit serious indictable offence.
After this second arrest, investigators recovered a total of 1,000 coins, but revealed they were sill searching for two men in connection with the Bluey coin theft. Detectives said the investigation was still ongoing, and announced to the press that they believe the rest are in general circulation after being sold to various online buyers.
Det Supt Joseph Doueihi said the investigation 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 revealed that most of the 63,000 stolen coins “remain outstanding” and remain in “general circulation.” DS Doueihi told reporters the theft “has deprived a lot of young children and members of the community of having access to these coins, so we’re doing our absolute best to try to recover these coins and put them back into 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.”
In early October 2024, police released CCTV footage of the theft which depicted a man they wished to speak with as part of the ongoing inquiry. The man was seen at a Commonwealth Bank in Revesby in Sydney’s west, and police described him as Pacific Islander or Maori in appearance, medium build with a black beard.
In the footage released by police, the unknown man can be seen getting out of the front passenger seat of a white 4WD, then passing something to a homeless person outside the bank and walking in with a black backpack. The footage then cuts off as the man approaches what appears to be a coin deposit machine.
In addition to the man seen entering the bank, police were also searching for the driver of white 4WD, whose identity is also unknown and who cannot be visibly seen inside the car. Police believe that Nielsen had help from two unidentified men, who assisted him in snatching the haul of coins from the back of the truck.
On October 30, 2024, it was announced that New South Wales Police had conducted a raid on a self-storage facility in Wentworthville. There officers found Royal Australian Mint bags containing 40,061 coins. Officers also seized power tools, clothing items, and bags from the storage facility, which they said are all believed to have been stolen.
Earlier that day, a woman had been arrested at a property about 10km from the storage facility and charged with breaking and entering and disposing of stolen property. 27-year-old Christina Vale was the third person arrested over the alleged theft. Police suspect that Vale played a significant role in the crime, and was the alleged getaway driver during the heist.
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