South Korean financial regulatory agency warns: Crypto fraud profits over $4 million or faces life imprisonment

According to Foresight News, as reported by Decrypt, the South Korean financial regulatory agency has issued a stern warning, stating that life imprisonment will be imposed for cryptocurrency fraud cases that result in profits exceeding 4 million US dollars (approximately 5 billion Korean won). This warning was issued after the enactment of South Korea's Virtual Asset User Protection Act in July 2024, which aims to prevent cryptocurrency crimes and is partly inspired by the Terra/Luna founder Do Kwon incident and the collapse of the FTX exchange. Lee Bok hyun, the President of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) in South Korea, told 16 executives in the digital asset industry that the financial regulatory authorities will continue to strictly enforce the bill. The new law also provides for other punitive measures, including fines of 3 to 5 times the amount of illegal gains and up to one year in prison. In addition, the bill requires virtual asset service providers (VASPs) to store at least 80% of customer funds in cold wallets and establish a reserve for cybersecurity incidents.