The CEO of Delio, recognized solely as Mr. Jeong, acquired a 15-year jail sentence in South Korea after being discovered responsible in a $50 million fraud case that affected greater than 1,100 individuals, native information outlet Newsis reported Thursday.
Delio, which went bankrupt in November 2024, accepted bitcoin and ether deposits, promised excessive yields after which locked prospects out of their funds in a single day on June 14, 2023. It
“Whereas working Delio, the defendant falsely obtained a digital asset buying and selling license and defrauded victims of roughly 70 billion received in digital belongings,” the Seoul Southern District Court docket stated when handing down the sentence towards Mr. Jeong.
Prosecutors initially sought a 20-year jail sentence for Mr. Jeong, however the courtroom threw out numerous the proof because of procedural deficiencies, which had been introduced ahead by Mr. Jeong’s attorneys. He was initially accused of defrauding 2,800 victims. The protection attorneys are anticipated to attraction the sentence.
The ruling towards Delio is only one extra in a collection of crypto-related fraud circumstances in South Korea. Do Kwon, the South Korean co-founder of Terraform Labs behind the TerraUSD (UST) algorithmic stablecoin and Luna token, orchestrated one of many largest frauds in monetary historical past when the ecosystem collapsed in Might 2022, wiping out roughly $40 billion in investor funds. In 2022, seven executives of the crypto alternate V International had been sentenced to jail for a $1.7 billion fraud, with former CEO Lee Byung-gul receiving 22 years.