CEO of South Korean crypto company sentenced to three years in prison for market manipulation
TL;DR
South Korean crypto CEO Jong-hwan Lee sentenced to 3 years in prison and fined for market manipulation under new Virtual Asset User Protection Act, marking the first such conviction. He used automated trading to inflate ACE cryptocurrency prices, profiting illegally.
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According to Foresight News , citing the Korea Economic Daily, a South Korean court sentenced Jong-hwan Lee, CEO of a cryptocurrency management company, to three years in prison for manipulating cryptocurrency prices to gain illicit profits. This is the first such conviction under the Virtual Asset User Protection Act, which came into effect in July 2024. The court also fined Lee 500 million won (approximately US$343,900) and confiscated approximately 846 million won (approximately US$582,000) in illicit gains. However, due to his good behavior during the trial, the court decided not to detain him in court.
Jong-hwan Lee allegedly used an automated trading program to inflate trading volume and place multiple wash trades between July 22 and October 25, 2024, to manipulate the price of ACE cryptocurrency, illegally profiting approximately 7.1 billion Korean won (about US$488,000). Before using the program, the average daily trading volume of the cryptocurrency was approximately 160,000 units, but the trading volume surged to 2.45 million units the following day.