• South Korean authorities have taken several staff members of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinone into custody for alleged breach of trust and criminal activity.
• The arrest warrants were issued by Seoul Southern District Court Chief Judge Kim Ji-Sook, who stated that the employees in question could escape and deemed it necessary to detain them.
• It is suspected that one of the coins listed on the exchange could be tied to a possible murder in a case involving a kidnapping from the Gangnam District.
Coinone Under The Scanner
High drama took place at Coinone after it emerged that the exchange’s executives could go to prison. Prosecutors in South Korea have claimed that the executives in question had received billions to list specific cryptocurrencies on their platform. As a result, authorities detained several employees of the exchange.
Details Of The Fraud
According to the authorities, the head of Coinone’s listing division, Kim Mo, broke the Concealment of Criminal Proceeds Act. He also faced allegations of breach of trust, along with another individual, Hwang Mo. As a listing broker, Hwang allegedly paid 2 billion won ($1.5 million) to Kim as bribes in exchange for Kim listing specific cryptocurrencies on Coinone’s platform. Investigators also claimed that one of these listed coins could be tied to a possible murder case involving kidnapping from Gangnam district of Seoul which has been linked to an investment gone wrong on Coinone exchange.
Coinone Overview
Coinone was founded in 2014 by Kevin Cha with the goal of serving crypto users based in South Korea. The exchange soon expanded to other countries such as Indonesia by 2017 and is now counted among South Korea’s Big 4 crypto exchanges which handle over 90% of total trading volume within country’s boundaries. Recently new rules were imposed by Korean regulators regarding operations carried out by exchanges and all four platforms including Coinone successfully fulfilled those requirements thus far..
Investigations And Consequences
South Korea was recently again brought under spotlight because investigations revealed activities like receiving payments for listing certain assets and circumventing procedures outlined for exchanges being done by Coinone executives and employees which has resulted into several arrests so far.. If found guilty they could face jail sentence ranging from few years up to life imprisonment as per local laws..