TL;DR Breakdown
- A 26-year-old man who allegedly defrauded nine investors of $165k arrested
- Two South Korean nationals have been arrested for allegedly stealing military secrets.
Law enforcement officers in South Korea have reportedly arrested a 26-year-old man who is accused of defrauding at least nine investors of 210 million Korea Won (i.e., US$165,798).
In November 2021, the unnamed individual allegedly put up 10,000 CatSle NFTs on the OpenSea NFT marketplace, promising purchasers that they would get a specified number of KLAY tokens for every ten purchases of the NFT. However, none of the buyers received any crypto reward as he promised.
Later on, the CatSle project, which had raised over $160,000 in investments, announced that it had been hacked and would be shutting down in January after being hacked. Over 5,000 NFTs had already been sold to about 300 buyers.
According to the South Korean police, it has been receiving a slew of reports about “property damage” caused by the CatSle team as a result of it shutting down the task successfully in January. So far, nine people have volunteered to defend against damage, with many more expected to come forward in the future.
The police also noted that the now-detained man manipulated the price of the NFTs through artificially trading. A translated message from the cyber bureau reads:
It was confirmed that [the general manager] had prepared meticulously for the crime in advance, such as selling his NFT at a high price and turning it into cash before the project was closed.
The NFT market may be unregulated, but law enforcement authorities are actively monitoring to crack down on illicit activities. In March, US authorities charged the creators of “Frosties” NFT after making away with $1.1 million from the project.
Two South Koreans arrested for selling military secrets in exchange for crypto assets
In other news, two South Korean nationals have been arrested for allegedly stealing military secrets from a suspected North Korean agent, according to police in the capital Seoul. The pair includes a serving army major. In exchange for military information, the North Korean spy is thought to have received payments in bitcoin.
The Pyongyang spy and the arrested businessman had first met in an online cryptocurrency community six years ago, according to Seoul police. The trio communicated solely through the encrypted messaging service Telegram.
Both were paid in crypto, according to the police. The North Korean agent provided the army captain with about 48 million won ($37,789), while the 38-year-old entrepreneur received around $600,000 from him.
