A South Korean CEX employee was sentenced to four years in prison for accepting Bitcoin bribes to persuade a military officer to leak information to North Korea.

A South Korean Supreme Court has sentenced an employee of a cryptocurrency exchange to four years in prison and banned him from working in the financial industry for four years for accepting Bitcoin from North Korea in an attempt to recruit South Korean military officers. The court found that North Korean hackers paid the exchange employee approximately $487,000 in Bitcoin to recruit active-duty South Korean officers; the army captain involved received approximately $33,500 in Bitcoin. The judge noted that the defendants were aware their actions involved a hostile nation, that their actions could endanger national security, and that they were motivated by personal financial gain. The captain had previously been sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $35,000 for violating the Military Secrets Protection Act, while the exchange employee was convicted of violating the National Security Act. The case revealed that the individuals involved contacted officers through Telegram chat rooms, providing them with hidden cameras disguised as watches and USB hacking devices in an attempt to steal login information from the ROK-US Joint Command and Control System.