South Korean Youtuber Exposed As The Mastermind Behind $320 billion Crypto scam

In South Korea, a prominent YouTuber with over 620,000 followers was recently arrested on charges of orchestrating a large-scale crypto fraud scheme that allegedly defrauded thousands of investors. Police have arrested 215 people in connection with the alleged fraud.

The youtuber, only referred to as Mr.A, tried to flee South Korea, attempting to evade arrest by travelling to Australia through Hong Kong and Singapore, but was eventually apprehended.

Selling worthless coins to investors

Mr.A allegedly set up an extensive network of sham companies to carry out the fraud. He and his accomplices are accused to receiving 325.6 billion Korean Won from 15,304 people for investment between December 2021 and March 2023, luring victims with mouthwatering phrases like "20 times your money" and "change your destiny."

Mr.A provided services under a non-existent investment consulting firm. He established six quasi-investment corporate entities and ten sales corporations. Moreover, these companies were involved in managing coin prices, issuing coins and money laundering.

The group also pretended to be officials from Financial Supervisory Service to gain people's trust. The group also inpersonated business associates through fake cards and phones to obtain investors' identification data and get them to take loans.

Victims were allegedly encouraged to sell property or take out loans to fund purchases of 28 different tokens, six of which were created by the group, while the remaining tokens had minimal trading volume and were deemed of little value.

Using the contacts he has collected from his Youtube Channel and advertising contacts list, the scammers were able to reach out to 9 million people to promote their scam. Many of the victims were either middle-aged or elderly people.

22 Bitcoin has been confiscated from Mr.A and police have applied to confiscate $34 million in cash from accounts associated with the scam.

Rising Crypto Fraud in South Korea

This large-scale arrest comes at a time when Korea has been plagued by digital asset-related fraud in recent years, including frauds promoted by influencers.

South Korean authorities have since then tightened surveillance on cryptocurrency transactions and imposed harsher punishments for offenders of these crimes.