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| Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office / Yonhap |
By Anna J. Park
A joint investigation team focusing exclusively on cryptocurrency-related financial crimes will be launched by prosecutors and financial authorities as early as next month, according to the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office, Wednesday.
It will be first time for such a joint investigative team handling cryptocurrency crimes to be set up within the structure of prosecutors' offices.
The investigative team will cover a wide range of fraud cases and other crimes related to digital coin trading, cryptocurrency price manipulation, the token nature of digital assets and more. Investigators with expertise in cryptocurrencies are also to be fostered and trained through the team.
With the slated launch of the team, prosecutors' ongoing investigations involving illegal coin trading and fraudulent coin issuance are expected to be strengthened.
Currently, the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office is investigating the dubious coin investments and trading of Rep. Kim Nam-kuk, who dropped his membership in the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea due to the controversy. Game company Wemade's controversial issuance and circulation of its own cryptocurrency Wemix is another case prosecutors are investigating. They are also looking into corruption allegations related to crypto exchange Coinone's coin listing.
"Cases that are already being investigated will be completed by the current department. New cases related to crimes involving cryptocurrencies will be assigned to the newly launched joint investigative team," an official from the prosecutors' office said.
The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office has also been operating a joint investigative unit on financial stock crimes. The joint investigative team was first launched in 2013, and has built a reputation for its expertise in investigating complicated stock fraud cases. The team was disbanded in early 2020 during the previous Moon Jae-in administration, but it was relaunched in May last year under the incumbent Yoon Suk Yeol administration. Since the relaunch of the unit, prosecutors have sent 373 suspects of stock fraud and other financial crimes to the court between last July and June this year.
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