Seojung Art sold nine years of monthly returns on paintings that had already been sold, or never existed at all. A Seoul court just put the CEO away for eighteen years. The 981 people who signed the contracts are still counting what is gone.
In February 2023, someone kept buying SM Entertainment shares above HYBE's tender price until the bid collapsed. A Seoul court acquitted Kakao's founder last October. The appeal began this week, and the tape is still the witness.
South Korean prosecutors are asking for a 4.5-year sentence against the alleged operator of CATFI, a Solana memecoin that rose 1,001-fold in a day and collapsed 99% by the next week. It is the first rug pull prosecution under the country's new Virtual Asset User Protection Act.
Twenty-two people, including a former gang member, ran the money through a company that looked like it sold gift certificates. It did not sell gift certificates. It sold cover.
South Korean regulators sent two alleged crypto market manipulators to prosecutors this week. One of them, they say, bought roughly half a token's global supply on foreign exchanges, then bled it out onto Korean screens where the buyers were waiting.
An Incheon indictment puts a number on a quiet trade: $554 million in alleged criminal crypto, converted to Korean won, routed through a Cambodian payment system Washington has called a primary money laundering concern. The man at the keyboard kept $1.2 million in fees.