Justice for Australia’s favourite cartoon dog is closer to being served with the arrest of a man over the theft of up to $600,000 in unreleased coins.

The 47-year-old man is accused of stealing 63,000 unreleased $1 Bluey coins from the back of a truck while working at a warehouse in western Sydney on June 23.

The half-tonne pallet of coins, which were produced by the Australian Mint, was stolen from the warehouse in Wetherill Park on July 12.

After the “dollarbucks” began to turn up online for sale, police from Strike Force Bandit pursued the case to a home in Sefton, in Sydney’s west, where 189 unreleased coins were found on July 31.

“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,” State Crime Command robbery and serious crime squad commander Detective Superintendent Joseph Doueihi said on Wednesday.

That led to another search of a home in Westmead, where a 47-year-old man was arrested about 7am on Wednesday.

“We will allege that this particular male was an employee of the Secure Storage facility at the time of the theft,” Doueihi said.

“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.”

The gold “dollarbucks” are selling online for up to $10 each. They differ from those in the more expensive Bluey collector packs, which are multicoloured.

Most of the “dollarbucks” stolen from Wetherill Park are still missing and police believe they are already in general circulation. They were always meant for general use – although not until September.

“If you are one of those lucky people to have come across one of those coins now, we don’t ask that you surrender that coin. It’s in circulation now, and that’s no issue to us,” Doueihi said.

“But if you have information where a bulk quantities of these coins are stored, we ask that you contact police as soon as possible.”

The man was taken to Granville Police Station where he was charged with three counts of break and enter to commit a serious indictable offence.

He was refused bail to appear before Parramatta Local Court on Wednesday.

Police are still searching for two other men they believe were involved in the theft.

-with AAP