The cryptocurrency market continues to suffer from the ravages of scams extensively.

Recently, a South Korean district court sentenced the executives of a local trading platform to prison.

The CEO of the exchange was sentenced to 16 years in prison while other managers and their partners got between 6 and 11 years.

These scammers deceived thousands of investors, promising a return of up to 200% within weeks.

According to Source The Seoul Central District Court has issued prison sentences for the executives who run the Coinup platform.

Judge Soo Byung-seok sentenced 53-year-old platform CEO Kang Seok-jung to 16 years in prison for committing fraud under the aggravated penal code, as well as certain economic crimes.

Read:Ukraine’s deputy prime minister asks crypto exchanges to stop serving Russian users

The stock exchange’s chief financial officer was also sentenced to 11 years in prison while other directors received 6 to 9 years each.

These executives were arrested last March on suspicion of fraud related to investing in cryptocurrency.

According to local media, Coinup executives deceived thousands of investors between August of last year and February of this year.

These scammers also managed to collect about 450 billion won, which is equivalent to about $386 million.

According to Yonhap News, the scammers:

They said that the value of the cryptocurrency they are referring to will increase exponentially, and they said that if they invested in the offered products, they would receive up to 200% after 4-10 weeks.

Scam details:

The executives lured people to invest in a cryptocurrency not listed with them on the platform, convincing them that its value would rise once it was listed.

But this currency was never listed and the investors lost their money.

While early investors were paid money collected from those who invested later.

Investigations revealed that the scheme used is a Ponzi scheme designed to mislead investors.

Read:The digital stablecoin USDC outperforms the USDT in May 2022…Here’s why!

COINUP CEO Kang displayed a picture of a fake magazine at the platform’s reception desk with a picture of him standing next to South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

The judge explained that the fraudsters made an acceptable appearance, including a magazine with a picture of the current president.

In view of the consequences, the crime is serious.

The judge added your statement

Victims are also responsible for spreading the damage by investing excessively without thinking about how to get high profits in a short time.

The cryptocurrency system in South Korea is undergoing many changes.

The country’s largest financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency, said it would tighten oversight of the industry in line with standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Last June, Yonhap News reported that the number of trading platforms in South Korea is on the rise, noting that the number of local exchanges reached 205.

The government introduced a system to provide the real name when trading on exchanges in January of last year.

It has banned the use of anonymous bank accounts for crypto transactions in an effort to prevent money laundering and other illegal activities.

Read:Hong Kong Financial Supervisory Authority’s Proposal to Restrict Cryptocurrency Trading

Despite the legal restrictions, banks have only offered real name account service to the four largest trading platforms in the country so far.

Democratic Party Representative Ji Yeon-kyung has proposed a bill to tighten online security rules for all cryptocurrency exchanges

However, this law is still pending in the National Assembly, along with a number of other laws relating to crypto.

Meanwhile, a presidential commission in South Korea is pressing the government to establish laws and regulations to regulate the cryptocurrency market so that the country becomes globally competitive.

Read also:

A story of scams in the cryptocurrency world: Project Sparkster

Chinese government arrests crypto project team for fraud