The Woori Bank in Seoul was searched by South Korean police in connection with the probe, weeks after three individuals were detained on suspicion of involvement in questionable financial activities, including cryptocurrency-related transactions.
Yonhap reported on September 22 that the Anti-Corruption Investigation Department of the Daegu District Prosecutor’s Office claimed that its prosecutors were executing a search and seizure warrant at the Woori Bank headquarters and examining one of its employees.
As stated in the report: “Prosecutors have already proved that the accused ran multiple fictitious organizations, engaged in unreported digital asset trading, and presented fake documentation to the bank in order to transfer 400 billion won in foreign cash overseas,”
According to the report, the subject of the investigation “was a Woori Bank branch manager at the time” and “was engaged in illicit foreign currency repatriation.”
As reported by Finbold, three individuals were detained in August on suspicion of involvement in illegally establishing a crypto trading organization, presenting fraudulent financial data to banks, and performing suspicious foreign currency transactions.
According to the claims, the detained people attempted to profit from the price differential between South Korean and international bitcoin exchanges, often known as the ‘kimchi premium.’
Yonhap also reported that 259.8 billion won in cryptocurrency was confiscated over a two-year period due to failure to pay taxes and municipal tax arrears. The seizure information was supplied by “the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, the National Tax Service, and seventeen cities and provinces.”
In July, authorities from the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors Office raided a number of local cryptocurrency exchanges, seizing transaction data and other evidence as part of an investigation into the well-known collapse of the Terra (LUNA) platform.
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