- South Korean Prosecutors are suspicious of illegal foreign exchange trading
- Watchdogs are in strong doubt about money laundering and illegal forex trading
- FSS is going head-on against the two lenders.
Money Laundering or Illicit Forex Transactions?
Another case of money laundering by crypto speculators is coming straight from the heart of South Korean financial grounds. South Korean prosecutors are highly suspicious about foreign remittances of over 2 trillion Korean Won, i.e. approximately 1.5 Billion USD at the country’s bank.
After receiving a relevant set of data regarding money laundering from Financial Supervisory Services (FSS), Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office is ready to investigate the same. Investigators are looking into foreign exchange transactions worth 1.3 Trillion won at Shinhan Bank and the remaining 800 Trillion Won at Woori Bank. Moreover, some part of these transactions is processed in China, as the report suggests.
FSS Investigations on Roll
FSS also identified a few companies which may be involved in the transactions as illegal profit margin shares using the Kimchi Premium bitcoin. Kimchi Premium describes the premium at which Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies trade in South Korea over other global markets, as foreign investors are prohibited to trade locally in the cryptocurrency market.
The investigators and prosecutors are scrutinizing the two lenders that may have breached any laws in order to make foreign currency trades or money laundering. There is a suspicion from the netizens that Terraform Labs may be involved in the process indirectly.
Moving further, Woori alerted FSS about suspicious trading activity in an account from one of their sales offices. The trading volume was huge and involved various corporate accounts as reported by Woori.
Conclusions
Earlier this year, FSS fined HANA bank from South Korea 50 Million won for violating the rules. This happened when Hana’s Seoul branch failed to track suspicious forex of 200 Billion won. Looking at the intensity and confidentiality of the case, the officials from the two lender banks denied providing any piece of details. They further said that FSS will have complete cooperation from our end however, the media has to wait until FSS completes the investigation and share the results.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/07/26/south-korean-prosecutors-firing-up-against-illicit-bitcoin-kimchi-premium-transactions/