In the same case, two people who submitted false documents during a stock exchange listing review received suspended sentences. The person accused of siphoning off 340 billion won was acquitted.
On October 15, the Seoul Southern District Court handed down its first-instance ruling in a cryptocurrency fraud case. The defendant was Park, a prominent figure in South Korea’s crypto scene who goes by the online name Jonber Kim and is often described in Chinese-language reports as a “crypto market operator.”
Prosecutors accused him of orchestrating a scheme involving two tokens, POD and ATT: bribing exchange executives, publicizing false project developments, and selling to retail investors after driving up the token prices. The amount involved was 340 billion won, or about $250 million. Prosecutors sought a 20-year prison sentence.
The court’s written ruling was quite clear. The project’s substantive content, business prospects, and use of funds had indeed been promoted in a misleading way. That was the court speaking, not the prosecution.
The court then said that prosecutors had failed to prove that any specific investor bought the tokens because they had seen those claims. The fraud charge was not made out. The breach-of-trust charge was also dismissed for lack of evidence.
The judge’s reasoning was even more direct: there was no digital evidence connecting Park’s personal devices or accounts to the software used to manipulate prices behind the scenes.
The people who were actually sentenced were two others. They had submitted false documents during Coinone’s review of whether to maintain the tokens’ listings, obstructing the exchange’s review process. One received a four-month sentence, suspended for one year. The other received a six-month sentence, suspended for two years.
Three outcomes, all delivered on the same day. The principal defendant was acquitted, the accomplices received suspended sentences, and the investors got nothing.
The ruling contains no compensation order. Those who bought POD and ATT at their peaks won’t get back a single cent.
Among the assets seized from Park earlier was a Ferrari valued at about $4.3 million. After the ruling, South Korean legal experts noted in public analyses that these seized assets were highly unlikely to be used to compensate investors.
The case timeline is also worth a look. In December 2023, he tried to leave the country on a fishing boat, but was caught at the border. He then served several months in prison in connection with the attempted illegal border crossing. In February 2025, prosecutors brought additional charges related to the tokens. Nearly two years and ten months passed between his arrest and the first-instance ruling.
The most important thing to remember about this ruling is its approach to evidence. In crypto cases, money flows and promotional claims are scattered across exchange backends and on-chain addresses. To convince a court that “you bought because of these claims,” prosecutors need to match a particular person’s promotional messaging to that same person’s purchase activity. The burden of proving that chain of events lies with the prosecution, which had no device-level evidence to offer.
So, over the long term, the outcome of cases like this depends on how detailed the evidence-gathering can be, not so much on the amount involved. The same conduct could lead to a 20-year sentence in one jurisdiction and release in court in another.
There is one caveat to this assessment, which I’ll acknowledge: this is a first-instance ruling, and prosecutors still have the opportunity to appeal. The final outcome may not end here. As for whether the investors who received no compensation can pursue civil remedies later, I’m not sure.
$BTC $ETH $XRP #币安广场 #加密货币 #韩国 #加密监管 #Judicial
On October 15, the Seoul Southern District Court handed down its first-instance ruling in a cryptocurrency fraud case. The defendant was Park, a prominent figure in South Korea’s crypto scene who goes by the online name Jonber Kim and is often described in Chinese-language reports as a “crypto market operator.”
Prosecutors accused him of orchestrating a scheme involving two tokens, POD and ATT: bribing exchange executives, publicizing false project developments, and selling to retail investors after driving up the token prices. The amount involved was 340 billion won, or about $250 million. Prosecutors sought a 20-year prison sentence.
The court’s written ruling was quite clear. The project’s substantive content, business prospects, and use of funds had indeed been promoted in a misleading way. That was the court speaking, not the prosecution.
The court then said that prosecutors had failed to prove that any specific investor bought the tokens because they had seen those claims. The fraud charge was not made out. The breach-of-trust charge was also dismissed for lack of evidence.
The judge’s reasoning was even more direct: there was no digital evidence connecting Park’s personal devices or accounts to the software used to manipulate prices behind the scenes.
The people who were actually sentenced were two others. They had submitted false documents during Coinone’s review of whether to maintain the tokens’ listings, obstructing the exchange’s review process. One received a four-month sentence, suspended for one year. The other received a six-month sentence, suspended for two years.
Three outcomes, all delivered on the same day. The principal defendant was acquitted, the accomplices received suspended sentences, and the investors got nothing.
The ruling contains no compensation order. Those who bought POD and ATT at their peaks won’t get back a single cent.
Among the assets seized from Park earlier was a Ferrari valued at about $4.3 million. After the ruling, South Korean legal experts noted in public analyses that these seized assets were highly unlikely to be used to compensate investors.
The case timeline is also worth a look. In December 2023, he tried to leave the country on a fishing boat, but was caught at the border. He then served several months in prison in connection with the attempted illegal border crossing. In February 2025, prosecutors brought additional charges related to the tokens. Nearly two years and ten months passed between his arrest and the first-instance ruling.
The most important thing to remember about this ruling is its approach to evidence. In crypto cases, money flows and promotional claims are scattered across exchange backends and on-chain addresses. To convince a court that “you bought because of these claims,” prosecutors need to match a particular person’s promotional messaging to that same person’s purchase activity. The burden of proving that chain of events lies with the prosecution, which had no device-level evidence to offer.
So, over the long term, the outcome of cases like this depends on how detailed the evidence-gathering can be, not so much on the amount involved. The same conduct could lead to a 20-year sentence in one jurisdiction and release in court in another.
There is one caveat to this assessment, which I’ll acknowledge: this is a first-instance ruling, and prosecutors still have the opportunity to appeal. The final outcome may not end here. As for whether the investors who received no compensation can pursue civil remedies later, I’m not sure.
$BTC $ETH $XRP #币安广场 #加密货币 #韩国 #加密监管 #Judicial