South Korean authorities seized $3.2 million worth of Crypto Assets from a fake exchange.

According to Gate News bot, the Korean police conducted a raid on a criminal group suspected of raising 100s of billions of Korean won by operating fraudulent overseas crypto assets exchanges, as reported by the Korean news agency. The police arrested 2 crypto assets exchanges and 3 operators on charges of violating the Foreign Exchange Transaction Act and the Electronic Financial Transactions Act.

The police stated in a statement: "By tracking accounts and virtual assets, as well as searching and seizing, we have recovered and retained approximately 12.4 billion won in assets held by currency exchange operators and companies in the name of others."

In this raid, authorities seized $3.2 million worth of Ethereum (ETH), which the suspects had stored in an encryption wallet. Reportedly, the criminals attempted to launder these funds, hoping to evade the investigation department's tracking. The gang has reportedly been illegally operating a crypto assets exchange for the past six years, collecting funds from potential clients and manually exchanging them through an independent exchange called Nettel Pay.

Authorities confirmed that three unregistered currency exchangers used fraudulent methods for crypto asset exchanges, with a total transaction amount of 943.4 billion Korean won. The illegal operations accumulated a transaction amount of approximately $694.5 million.

The South Korean group raised up to 25.7 billion won through platform fees, approximately 18.92 million USD.

During the entire investigation process, the prosecuting authorities confirmed that the funds received by the fraud victims were converted into Nettel Pay and used for overseas gambling websites, and began the investigation.

In February of this year, the South Korean prosecution established a dedicated joint investigation team for virtual asset crimes, mainly composed of prosecutors and financial regulatory personnel from the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service.