The National Investigation Headquarters of the National Police Agency announced on the 10th that it has arrested 187 people (62 cases) and is investigating 105 cases for cracking down on illegal acts related to virtual assets since March.
From April 16th to June 1st, the police caught 60 to 183 cases of virtual asset pseudo-receipt and fraud.
By type, there were 48 cases (80%) of Δ similar receipt and multi-level fraud under the guise of virtual assets, Δ 5 cases (8%) of illegal acts such as embezzlement of virtual asset exchanges, and 7 cases (12%) of Δ other virtual asset-related fraud.
The police are currently investigating a case of fraudulent fraud that extorts 3.85 trillion won from 60,000 victims by deceiving them to pay more than the principal in virtual currency if they invest in a virtual asset exchange.
In addition, 25 suspects in the same type of case were arrested for extorting 93.5 billion won from 6,000 victims by deceiving them to pay a part of their investment every day when investing in virtual asset businesses, etc.
The police also cracked down on crimes that violate information and communications networks, such as theft of virtual assets, and arrested two or four people from March 1 to May 31 of this year. The police are still investigating 45 related crimes.
According to the police, the number of crackdowns on virtual assets per year increased by about 7.1 times from 41 cases in 2017 (126 people arrested) to 333 cases (560 people arrested) last year.
Annual damages also surged from an average of 403.5 billion won for the past four years until last year to 4.16 trillion won as of the end of May this year.
From January of this year to the present, about 250.6 billion won worth of related crime proceeds were also confiscated and collected prior to prosecution. Preservation of confiscation and collection before indictment is to prevent the disposal of the suspect’s illegally suspected proceeds before a final judgment on the charges is made.
A police official said, “Due to the recent craze for virtual asset investment, the number of transaction participants reached 5.8 million as of April.
