South Korea is home to a considerable amount of cryptocurrency owners. The East Asian country has witnessed a rapid surge in cryptocurrency adoption rate, as the industry gets more mainstream. Notwithstanding, recent data suggests some of these crypto transactions might be going towards illegal deals.
South Korean authorities reported four illicit crypto-related deals of up to $1.1B
According to a Bloomberg report, the rate of illegal crypto-related transactions appears to have surged in recent times. Citing government data, Bloomberg noted that most illegal forex transactions in South Korea this year are crypto-related. In addition, the data suggests that they contribute to almost 75% of all illicit Forex transactions in 2022 so far.
Per Bloomberg, the South Korean prosecutor’s office recently received reports of four illicit crypto-related transactions. The transactions have a combined value of 1.5 trillion won ($1.1 billion).
This figure represents 70 times the entire illicit cryptocurrency-related FX transactions the country recorded in 2020. Additionally, it is almost double the value of 827 billion won witnessed in all of 2021.
Furthermore, besides the four illicit FX transactions, South Korea is also investigating related cases of $3.4B of abnormal transactions. The transactions allegedly have links to illicit crypto-related deals. Additionally, the authorities allege that two major banks in the country facilitated the transactions.
