The South Korean authorities detained four representatives of two local crypto-banks in Seoul on suspicion of illegally appropriating "billions of dollars", reports Reuters.
One of the detainees is Kim Ik-hwan, CEO of the CoinNest crypto exchange, the fifth-largest trading volume in the country. Information about the remaining suspects is still unknown.
"They are being questioned about the embezzlement of billions of won client funds that [the suspects] brought from their user accounts to their accounts," one of the law enforcers told Reuters.
Also, according to him, the authorities of the country plan to study the activities of other South Korean crypto-banks, where such abuses are potentially possible.
As noted by CryptoNinjas, law enforcement agencies of South Korea for 20 days in detail studied the information on transactions and reporting of several exchanges. As a result, gross violations were revealed and a decision was made to initiate investigative actions against several representatives of trading platforms.
It should be noted that recently in South Korea, regulation of the crypto industry has become much tougher. So, in February, the authorities of this country began to discuss the possibility of introducing mandatory licensing of crypto-exchange exchanges of the type BitLicense. Shortly before that, the government obliged trading floors to transfer information to customers about customers, and just yesterday the Fair Trade Commission of the Republic of Korea ordered 12 local crypto-exchange exchanges to renegotiate contracts with customers.