Seoul Prosecutor's office detained top managers of the Haru Invest cryptocurrency company for fraud
Three senior executives of the Haru Invest cryptocurrency platform, which stopped customer service in June 2023, have been arrested by South Korean authorities. This is telegraphed by the local Yonhap news agency.
The Special Cybercrime Investigation Department of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor's Office accused them of embezzling 1.1 trillion won ($830 million) in cryptocurrencies belonging to 16,000 Haru Invest users.
According to the prosecutor's office, the CEO of Haru Invest and two of his subordinates are among the detainees. They are suspected of illegally seizing most of the funds invested by customers, transferring them to other accounts from March 2020 to June 2023. They also misled their clients by claiming that Haru is a reliable company using "safe diverse investment strategies."
This message followed another unhelpful announcement from Haru Invest. On February 4, the company published a post on the social network X, in which it stated that "there is no news this week that we could report." The signature under the message belonged to Haru Invest CEO Hugo Lee.
"We currently have no information on the progress of the investigation and the current situation following the arrest of Bang Jun-ho, the main owner of B&S Holdings. We continue to do everything possible to return assets, as before," the message read.
