After a meeting of South Korea’s financial intelligence agency with five of the industry’s leading players (Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Corbit, and Gopax), the government has decided to help the Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) to strengthen compliance with the law and increase measures to combat crimes.
On the preceding day, the government had created a unit to combat cryptocurrency crimes due to the surge of illegal activities and lack of legal protection for investors.
The so-called “joint center for the investigation of cryptocrimes” consists of thirty investigators from the prosecutor’s office, the Financial Supervision Service, the National Tax Service, and the Customs Service to address any gaps that exist in investor protection until the digital asset market is regulated.
The center will be investigating highly volatile crypto assets, illegal trading practices, tax evasion, unauthorized foreign exchange transfers, concealing criminal profits, and money laundering.
In June 2023, the South Korean Parliament passed a law to protect users of digital assets that combined nineteen different bills related to cryptocurrencies and set out liabilities for offences such as insider trading, market manipulation, and unfair trading practices.
