South Korean police catch $4.1M crypto scam duo
South Korean police have caught a pair of fraudsters who stole 5.5 billion won ($4.1 million) from a senior citizen with the promise of profitable crypto investments.
The Haeundae Police Station in Busan, South Korea, detained two individuals in their 20s and 30s for deceiving a senior citizen and stealing 5.5 billion South Korean won spread across multiple transactions.
According to a local report, the victim was promised high returns on cryptocurrency investments between September 2022 and December 2022.
The scammers guaranteed 70% profits in a monthly investment of 1 billion won. The police quoted the fraudsters saying:
“It’s a boom period for coin (cryptocurrency). If you invest 1 billion won, I will call it 1.7 billion won a month later.”
The victim sent 5.5 billion won in total over six different transactions to the scammers, who then forged balance certificates to show as proof of investments.
During the scam, the victim was shown fake balance sheets of crypto investments and real estate contracts.
South Korean police said the fake balance sheet showed 20 billion won worth of cryptocurrencies, even though none of the victim’s 5.5 billion won funds made it to the crypto trading account.
While the police have detained the fraudsters in a timely manner, information about the recovery of funds has yet to be made public.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s most infamous crypto entrepreneur, Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon, was reportedly released from prison in Montenegro on March 23 amid extradition requests from the United States and South Korea.
Kwon is currently facing legal charges for the collapse of the Terra ecosystem in 2022. Prison director Darko Vukcevic reportedly said by phone:
“We released Do Kwon from prison as his regular prison term for traveling with fake papers ended. Since he is a foreign citizen and his documents were withheld, he was taken for an interview to the police directorate for foreigners, and they will deal with him further.”
The decision to release Kwon reportedly came from the Council of the Supreme Court, which is set to review a decision that could grant or deny extradition to his native South Korea.
