Bogus Crypto Exchange CEO jailed for 25 years

[ad_1]

Source: Rémi Cormier (CC BY-SA 3.0)

The CEO of a bogus South Korean crypto exchange that cheated some 50,000 customers out of a total of $2.3 billion will spend the next 25 years behind bars – after the Supreme Court found him guilty of fraud.

Yonhap reported that the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by stock exchange CEO V Global, surnamed Lee, and upheld the High Court’s guilty verdict.

Although the “exchange” was designed to look like a bonafide trading platform – replete with a website that featured real-time coin tickers – the court heard it was anything but. .

Lee orchestrated V Global. But the court heard he once used crypto-themed multi-level marketing tactics to dupe investors at another, now defunct, exchange.

The V Global exchange used a “tiered membership system”. He promised members payments in the platform’s own tokens to recruit new members. These coins also turned out to be fake.

V Global headquarters in Seoul, South Korea. (Source: MBC/YouTube)

The platform was operational between July 2020 and April 2021, the court said.

V Global offered promises of 300% growth on initial customer stakes. But the police finally intervened after groups of angry investors came forward in 2021, complaining that they could not withdraw tokens or fiat from the platform.

CEO to serve 25 years as other bogus crypto executives await final verdict

Lee and a number of senior V Global executives went on trial last year. Senior executives have been jailed for between four and 14 years – the company’s second most powerful executive (after Lee) was given an eight-year sentence at the end of 2022.

Most of the executives – aside from Lee – were tried together.

In Lee’s first trial (district court), the CEO was sentenced to 22 years in prison – although prosecutors and victims’ groups have called for a maximum life sentence.

The case then went to the High Court, which increased Lee’s sentence to 25 years and ordered him to pay a fine of over $8 million.

The Supreme Court – the highest in the land – upheld the High Court’s verdict on January 13, confirming that the High Court had been correct in its interpretation of the law.

The court heard evidence of how Lee used “sophisticated” “pyramid scheme” methods to ensure that older “members” of the exchange were paid with money provided by new “ recruits”.

The High Court is currently considering the cases of the other V Global executives. The group was found guilty of “destroying evidence” and “interfering with police investigations” – in addition to fraud-related offences.

[ad_2]