As crimes using cryptocurrencies (virtual currency) such as bitcoin are increasing, investigative agencies’ preservation and confiscation of cryptocurrency crime profits is increasing. The National Tax Service is creating a new landscape of additional collections that seize cryptocurrency trading proceeds from large delinquents.
According to the’Conservation Status of Virtual Assets by Type of Virtual Assets for 2019-2020′ submitted by the National Police Agency’s Office of the People’s Power of the People on the 22nd, the police said that a total of eight applications for cryptocurrency conservation were cited during this period.
The highest number of cases of making criminal proceeds with cryptocurrency were the crimes of making and distributing sexually exploited materials with 3 cases. Subsequently, each case of embezzlement, fraud, violation of the Personal Information Protection Act, opening of a gambling place, and violation of the Narcotics Control Act led to citations for preservation applications.
Preservation measures mean freezing of the criminal’s property prior to the confiscation or collection of criminal proceeds. Conservation measures can be taken in serious crimes stipulated by the law, but they are freeze measures and do not lead to redemption.
The cryptocurrency preserved by the police was mostly altcoins, not bitcoins. The amount of bitcoins preserved is about 80.567, which is worth about 3,242,240,000 won based on the closing price on December 28, 2020 (1BTC = about 3754 million won).
A police official explained, “If the whereabouts of the criminal proceeds, whether it be virtual currency or real estate, cannot be found, they apply for supplementary preservation not only for the criminal proceeds of the suspect, but also for the rest of the property.”
The prosecution is also confiscating the cryptocurrency used in the crime. The prosecution confiscated about 210 Bitcoins and 39,268 Tether Coins four times from 2019 to 2020, and is currently redeeming them for Treasury. There is also a case where about 12.3 billion won worth of bitcoin was confiscated and redeemed from the treasury.
Since the second half of last year, the National Tax Service has been collecting the amount of arrears by seizing and collecting the exercise of the right to claim the return of the trading amount of virtual currency that will be paid from the exchange by large arrears who have concealed their assets in cryptocurrency.
After the enforcement of the mandatory cryptocurrency collection, the National Tax Service collected 36.6 billion won worth of cryptocurrency from 2416 people by March this year.
The government also recently announced that April-June is set as a government-wide special crackdown period in preparation for illegal activities such as money laundering and fraud using cryptocurrency, and that it is intensively cracking down on illegal activities with related agencies.
Rep. Kwon Young-se said, “Investment in virtual currency is increasing significantly, and the scale of virtual currency abused for crimes such as tax evasion is also expanding.” He warned.
