South Korean authorities have apprehended six Chinese nationals in Jeju, South Korea for assaulting a dealer and stealing $1 billion won from him during their encounter at a luxury hotel.
But the perpetrators are denying all allegations, and they are claiming to be the real victims in this ordeal. The perpetrators are accusing the dealer of trying to sell them short and attempting to scam them of their money.
Two very different accounts of what the incident
What the police found and concluded from the case and what the perpetrators were claiming were two completely different stories.
From their investigation, police found that the perpetrators were supposed to meet the dealer at a luxury hotel in Jeju, Korea, to initiate a deal where the dealer agreed to sell the an undisclosed amount of crypto for over $690,00 in cash as part of an over-the-counter trade.
Apparently, the group had made transactions with the dealer on 7 previous occasions, with the exchanger then transferring coins to their crypto wallets.
But the perpetrators had no intention of sticking to their part of the deal; after taking the crypto coins from the dealer, they assaulted the him and stole the cash they had given him and ran away with both the cash and crypto. The crypto stolen was worth almost 1 billion won.
But the perpetrators told a completely different story. According to them, the dealer tried to interfere with the barter process,leading to a massive argument. The disagreement escalated and ended into a scuffle where the dealer was injured, but they ultimately left with the cash that they were originally offered to exchange with the dealer.
But police are not buying their story, and stated that the group had planned the attack from the very start, with their aim to steal the money after they transferred the crypto asset out of the wallet.
Perpetrators caught but money lost
Two suspects were detained at the hotel, while three other suspects were arrested at Jeju International Airport. The last of the suspects was arrested at a money transfer service close to the scene.
But the Korean police only managed to recover 369 million won in cash from the suspect, and are still tracing the rest of the stolen money. Police are still investigating the events and the extent of the theft as well as the flow of the stolen crypto assets.
In response to such risks, the South Korean Financial Services Commission (FSC) is now developing the second phase of the country's cryptocurrency regulation to strengthen the consumer protection.
Although the details of the new framework has yet to be confirmed to the public, but the FSC has announced that the upcoming regulation will cover stablecoins, crypto exchanges, and market access, in recognition of the increasing need for regulation in the developing crypto industry..