In the neon underbelly of Seoul, two badge-wearing heroes, scratch that, villains, embark on a quest for easy cash, only to slam face-first into the prosecutorial dragon.
Meet Officer “G” and Chief “F,” a superintendent and senior cop from Seoul’s finest, indicted on November 27 for pocketing bribes from shady crypto exchange bosses.
Side gig?
The story, shared by local news outlets, is as crazy as you can imagine.
Their loot? A cool $186 million laundered through voice phishing scams, disguised as gift certificate shops in bustling Yeoksam-dong.
Banners screaming “Beware of Voice Phishing” outside? Pure genius, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing hawking mutton.
These crooked crusaders traded investigative secrets for stacks of cash and swanky gifts. Officer “G” snagged $7,500, while Chief “F” raked in $59,000 from July 2022 to February 2024.
They unfroze illicit accounts, hooked up lawyers, and name-dropped fellow lawmen, all for a cut of the pie.
Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office fired them on the spot, freezing $1.1 million in dirty assets, including $600,000 in USDT.
The rest, $8.4 million vanished into thin air, probably mixer mixers or privacy app black holes.
The Korean job
Kadan Stadelmann, CTO at Komodo Platform, nailed it, sharing wallet deets just herds suspects to obfuscation tools, gutting AML efforts.
Communities gotta whip their cops into shape, or watch the blockchain banditry bloom.
These exchanges? Experts say they’re slick ops swapping crypto for cash in crowded spots from January to October 2024, turning phishing plunder into stablecoin stacks.
And the local scene is quite foggy, as South Korea’s crypto crime wave crashes harder than a kimchi hangover.
August 23, a 33-year-old nabbed at Suvarnabhumi Airport, linked to a gang laundering crypto into gold, $44.55 million empire. February 6, an arrest warrant for impersonation, laundering, and data fraud.
November 13, last year, 215 busts in the nation’s biggest scam, $228.4 million swindled from 15,000 suckers via 28 fake tokens.
The ringleader “Mr A” fled to Australia, but cops seized 22 Bitcoins and eyed $34 million more.
Crypto is the hot new gateway for money laundering?
Democratic Party legislator Jin Sung-joon warns that crypto is the hot new gateway for FX shenanigans and money laundering amid the investor frenzy.
As Seoul’s enforcers turn turncoats, the quest loops back, will regulators slay the beast, or join the feast? In Korea’s crypto coliseum, trust’s the real casualty, and the blockchain bandits keep laughing all the way to the mixer.
Cryptocurrency and Web3 expert, founder of Kriptoworld
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With years of experience covering the blockchain space, András delivers insightful reporting on DeFi, tokenization, altcoins, and crypto regulations shaping the digital economy.
