South Korean crypto fraud executives jailed

The latest court action puts seven V Global executives behind bars, including the 22-year-old CEO.

Six executives involved in the $1.5 billion (2 trillion won) V Global crypto exchange fraud received up to eight years in prison. Three were not detained so they could fight certain charges in court.

V Global recruited 50,000 investors between July 2020 and April 2021 by promising 300% returns and referral bonuses.

According to a translation of Dec. 26 reports from South Korean media, Mr. Yang and Mr. Oh got eight and three years for defrauding investors.

Unnamed executives received 3-year sentences and 5-year probation.

Three of the six haven't been detained because they claim innocence and can defend themselves in court.

"The defendants only trusted VGlobal's management team, evaded responsibility, and once the investigation began, they destroyed evidence and interfered with it," the judge said.

The judge gave the defendants leniency because the amount of fraud and number of investors affected was lower than initially thought last year.

Kyeongin reported in February that 10,000 investors had made returns from V Global via multilevel marketing incentives like customer recruitment bonuses. Many reportedly reinvested profits before the platform was shut down.

In June 2015, it was alleged that the company paid out $1,000 customer referral bonuses to existing investors using new user capital in a Ponzi-like fashion.

The latest court action puts seven V Global executives behind bars, including CEO Mr. Lee, who was sentenced to 22 years in February.