Thai authorities have busted a $15 million legal enterprise that victimized over 870 South Koreans, in what one skilled calls a case research of “multi-layered laundering.”
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Financial Crime Investigation Division introduced Monday the arrest of 25 members of “Lungo Firm,” a fraud ring that deployed a number of rip-off techniques, together with romance schemes, crypto fraud, and pretend lottery compensation gives.
Thai police individually detained the ringleader and eight core members, who stay in custody pending extradition to South Korea, in keeping with a native media report.
“In contrast to earlier crime rings that normally relied on a single technique, this group used a number of techniques in a scientific method,” a police official mentioned.
Victims have been reportedly manipulated into depositing cash on pretend platforms or buying nugatory crypto below the guise of compensation for knowledge breaches.
Cybercrime guide David Sehyeon Baek instructed Decrypt, the group would leverage “intensive OTC dealer networks working all through Thailand, significantly in vacationer areas like Pattaya,” noting these unlicensed operations “facilitate crypto-to-fiat conversions whereas bypassing conventional banking oversight.”
The Lungo Firm seemingly employed chain-hopping techniques, he mentioned, “quickly swapping funds throughout completely different blockchains to obscure transaction trails” by changing varied crypto throughout a number of networks.
“Cross-chain crime has surged globally, tripling prior to now two years,” as decentralized exchanges, cross-chain bridges, and no-KYC coin swap companies allow fast nameless transfers, Baek mentioned.
That successfully forces “investigators to spend numerous hours manually tracing funds throughout a number of protocols.”
The group would exploit nested companies—unauthorized buying and selling operations inside regulated exchanges that enable purchasers to commerce “whereas hiding any connection to the underlying regulated infrastructure,” Baek famous.
“Technically, these schemes contain shell firms opening accounts throughout a number of main exchanges utilizing fraudulent credentials, then providing customized interfaces that enable purchasers to commerce whereas hiding any connection to the underlying regulated infrastructure,” he added.
These “parasite exchanges” course of practically “100 occasions extra illicit quantity than their mainstream host platforms,” the skilled mentioned, and cost premium charges, usually between “7% and 15%,” in alternate for anonymity.
Baek mentioned further methods seemingly included crypto-funded pay as you go playing cards for ATM withdrawals, on line casino laundering to provide “clear” winnings, and micro-transactions break up into 1000’s of transfers to remain “beneath detection thresholds.”
For last cash-out, the skilled mentioned the community nearly actually turned to unregulated OTC brokers in Thailand and neighboring jurisdictions, offering “high-volume cash-out with minimal scrutiny,” and sure coordinated by way of encrypted apps like “Telegram and WeChat.”
Simply final month, Seoul police dismantled a global hacking ring that stole $28.1 million from South Korea’s wealthiest people, together with BTS member Jungkook and prime enterprise executives, after breaching their monetary and crypto accounts.
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