South Korea Detains Cryptocurrency Executives Over Alleged Embezzlement

South Korean authorities on Thursday detained a number of top-level staff from two of the nation’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges over allegations of the embezzlement of property, in line with a report by Maeil Business Newspaper.

According to the report, Coinnest’s co-founder Kim Yik-hwan is among the many arrested, together with three unidentified executives.

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The transfer has created a stir within the Korean cryptocurrency neighborhood, as this the primary time staff of an area cryptocurrency enterprise have been detained.

As per the allegations made by the prosecutors, the lads had been concerned in a switch of the change’s purchasers’ funds to a personal account held by representatives of the exchanges.

Coinnest was a part of a three-day lengthy search operation by the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s monetary investigation division in December of final yr. Though two different exchanges had been additionally searched, no title, besides Coinnest’s, has surfaced for now.

However, in line with experiences, prosecutors are within the strategy of investigating one other cryptocurrency change, which, they're suspecting, has conned its purchasers by providing funding choices.

A distinct strategy

The South Korean episode of cryptocurrency has taken a brand new flip in latest days, as the federal government did not put a ban on the complete digital asset enterprise earlier this yr.

The South Korean authorities has efficiently barred all nameless accounts from buying and selling digital property towards KRW, nevertheless, because of strict insurance policies banks have permitted solely the highest 4 exchanges of the nation – Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit – to open digital accounts.

Moreover, final month, South Korea’s monetary regulators introduced that they may perform inspections on native banks’ operations with cryptocurrency exchanges to examine their compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) pointers.

Meanwhile, in line with native experiences, authorities have ordered twelve cryptocurrency exchanges working inside the nations borders to revise their adhesion contracts.