Key takeaways:
- Two con artists who fooled an elderly citizen out of 5.5 billion won ($4.1 million) by promising lucrative crypto investments have been apprehended by South Korean authorities.
- The victim was allegedly promised large profits on cryptocurrency investments between September 2022 and December 2022.
Two con artists who fooled an elderly citizen out of 5.5 billion won ($4.1 million) by promising lucrative cryptocurrency investments have been apprehended by South Korean authorities.
Two people in their 20s and 30s were arrested by the Haeundae Police Station in Busan, South Korea, for tricking an older adult and stealing 5.5 billion South Korean won over several transactions.
According to a local article, the victim was allegedly promised large profits on cryptocurrency investments made between September 2022 and December 2022.
With a monthly investment of one billion won, the scammers promised 70% earnings. According to the authorities, the scammers said:
“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.”
In six separate transactions, the victim wired the scammers 5.5 billion won in total. The con artists then falsified balance certificates to present as evidence of their investments.
False balance sheets for cryptocurrency investments and real estate contracts were displayed to the victim during the scam.
According to South Korean authorities, no money from the victim’s 5.5 billion won account reached the cryptocurrency trading account despite the phony balance sheet indicating 20 billion won worth of cryptocurrency.
Although the authorities promptly apprehended the scammers, details regarding the fund recovery are still to come to light.
Do Kwon, the co-founder of Terraform Labs and the most notorious cryptocurrency entrepreneur in South Korea, was reportedly freed from prison in Montenegro on March 23 in response to requests for extradition from both South Korea and the United States.
Kwon is presently being prosecuted for the 2022 collapse of the Terra biosphere. By phone, Darko Vukcevic, the head of prisons, allegedly stated:
“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 Supreme Court Council reportedly made the decision to release Kwon. The Council will now deliberate over whether to approve or oppose his extradition to South Korea, his place of origin.
