South Korean authorities, who are presently looking into the $40 billion Terra-Luna scandal, plan to create a special investigation unit for crimes involving digital currencies, as per an announcement by the spokesperson of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office on July 11. Sources revealed the team would study legal concerns like the securitization of virtual assets and concentrate on crypto crimes like fraud.
Specialized investigators will also be trained, the prosecutor’s office revealed. This is a noteworthy step because it marks the establishment of an investigating division for crypto-related offenses in a prosecutor’s office in South Korea for the first time. The Seoul Southern District Prosecutor’s Office has accused Terraform Labs chief executive officer Kwon Do-hyeong and his associates of defrauding investors, among other charges.
A few days earlier, Daniel Shin, a co-accused in the Terra fiasco, and seven other former employees of the failed cryptocurrency project commenced their first court trials in South Korea. According to a statement in an email, Shin made the decision not to show up as it was a preliminary hearing.
He and nine other Terraform Labs employees were charged with defrauding investors by promoting the Terra stablecoin as a means of payment while being aware that such activities were forbidden. While Shin’s partner and prime accused, Do Kwon, is currently incarcerated in Montenegro, serving a four-month sentence, the jailed founder appears to be moving $18 million worth of USDC stablecoins.
Terra Kingpin Transferred $18M To ‘Unfreezable’ Tokens
On-chain data revealed that the amount was transferred on July 10 from a cryptocurrency wallet linked to the indicted Terraform Labs chief executive officer, said South Korean university professor Cho Jae-woo.
The USDC was changed into cryptocurrencies, per Cho, the director of Hansung University’s blockchain data lab, which could make it difficult for law enforcement to recover Kwon’s assets because some of the tokens are deemed “unfreezable.”
The transfers, first reported by Whale Alert on Twitter, happened on the same day that 5,292 Bitcoin worth over US$160 million were transferred from a wallet connected to the Luna Foundation Guard, a division of Terraform Labs, according to South Korea’s Blockmedia.