{"id":403418,"date":"2025-08-29T16:27:37","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T10:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/south-korea-busts-hacking-syndicate-after-multi-million-dollar-crypto-losses-crypto-news\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T17:18:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T11:48:52","slug":"south-korea-busts-hacking-syndicate-after-multi-million-dollar-crypto-losses-crypto-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/south-korea-busts-hacking-syndicate-after-multi-million-dollar-crypto-losses-crypto-news\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korea Busts Hacking Syndicate After Multi-Million Dollar Crypto Losses &#8211; Crypto News"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"position:relative;overflow:visible;font-size:1.2em;line-height:1.58\">\n<div class=\"pt-8 pb-10 border-t border-b border-decryptGridline \">\n<h4 class=\"sc-b2a202e4-4 bNRGqr gg-dark:text-white\" color=\"#333\">In brief<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"font-meta-serif-pro font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">A hacking syndicate allegedly stole $28.1 million (\u20a939 billion) from financial and crypto accounts of 258 wealthy Koreans, including celebrities and top business executives.<\/li>\n<li class=\"font-meta-serif-pro font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">The largest single crypto theft reached $15.4 million (\u20a921.3 billion), though authorities haven&#8217;t specified what portion of the total losses was in crypto.<\/li>\n<li class=\"font-meta-serif-pro font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">The case exposes systematic vulnerabilities in Korea&#8217;s digital infrastructure as international criminal organizations increasingly target the country&#8217;s elite, Decrypt was told.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"font-meta-serif-pro scene:font-noto-sans scene:text-base scene:md:text-lg font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">Seoul police have dismantled an international hacking ring that systematically targeted South Korea&#8217;s wealthiest individuals, including BTS member Jungkook and top business executives, after the group stole $28.1 million (\u20a939 billion) from victims&#8217; financial and crypto accounts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-meta-serif-pro scene:font-noto-sans scene:text-base scene:md:text-lg font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency&#8217;s Cyber Investigation Unit announced the arrest of 16 suspects Thursday, including two Chinese ringleaders who allegedly orchestrated the scheme from bases in China and Thailand between July 2023 and April 2024, according to <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.joongang.co.kr\/article\/25362389\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow external noopener\" class=\"sc-adb616fe-0 bJsyml\"><i>Korea Joongang Daily<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border:0\" src=\"https:\/\/linea.myriadprotocol.com\/markets\/will-satoshi-nakamoto-s-wealth-be-above-150b-at-end-of-september\" width=\"100%\" height=\"415px\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display:inline-block;width:0px;overflow:hidden;line-height:0\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-meta-serif-pro scene:font-noto-sans scene:text-base scene:md:text-lg font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">&#8220;This incident highlights a critical reality: international criminal organizations are systematically targeting Korean entities, and most domestic institutions lack adequate defenses against their advanced hacking capabilities,&#8221; Rich O., regional manager APAC at hardware wallet manufacturer OneKey, told <i>Decrypt<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-meta-serif-pro scene:font-noto-sans scene:text-base scene:md:text-lg font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">According to the police, the criminal organization breached government and financial institution websites to steal personal data from wealthy targets, then used this information to create over 100 fraudulent phone accounts that bypassed security systems and enabled unauthorized access to victims&#8217; bank and crypto wallets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-meta-serif-pro scene:font-noto-sans scene:text-base scene:md:text-lg font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">While they harvested data from 258 high-profile individuals, including 28 crypto investors, 75 business executives, 12 celebrities, and 6 athletes, actual theft attempts were allegedly made against only 26 people, whose combined account balances totaled $39.8 billion (\u20a955.22 trillion).<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-meta-serif-pro scene:font-noto-sans scene:text-base scene:md:text-lg font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">Among them, the hackers reportedly stole from 16 victims, with the largest single crypto theft reaching $15.4 million (\u20a921.3 billion).<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-meta-serif-pro scene:font-noto-sans scene:text-base scene:md:text-lg font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">Financial institutions blocked an additional $18 million (\u20a925 billion) in attempted thefts targeting 10 other victims, thereby preventing further losses.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"sc-b2a202e4-2 bmropA gg-dark:text-white scene:font-itc-avant-garde-gothic-pro scene:font-light\" style=\"margin-top:2em;text-align:left;padding-bottom:16px;margin-bottom:16px;border-bottom:1px solid #dfe2e4\" color=\"#333\">Crypto holders \u201cprime targets\u201d<\/h2>\n<p class=\"font-meta-serif-pro scene:font-noto-sans scene:text-base scene:md:text-lg font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">Crypto holders have become &#8220;prime targets&#8221;, but remain just one segment of the wealthy individuals hackers pursue, O. said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-meta-serif-pro scene:font-noto-sans scene:text-base scene:md:text-lg font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">He said the case marks \u201ca new level of hacking threat\u201d because of the \u201csystematic hacking of government and financial institutions to profile wealthy individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-meta-serif-pro scene:font-noto-sans scene:text-base scene:md:text-lg font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">In Jungkook&#8217;s case, attackers allegedly <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/n.news.naver.com\/article\/001\/0015580189\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow external noopener\" class=\"sc-adb616fe-0 bJsyml\">attempted<\/a> to drain $6.1 million (\u20a98.4 billion) in Hybe entertainment stock holdings in January following his military enlistment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-meta-serif-pro scene:font-noto-sans scene:text-base scene:md:text-lg font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">However, banking systems flagged the unusual activity, and his management company intervened, blocking the unauthorized transfers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-meta-serif-pro scene:font-noto-sans scene:text-base scene:md:text-lg font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">Authorities successfully froze and returned $9.2 million (\u20a912.8 billion) to victims through quick response measures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-meta-serif-pro scene:font-noto-sans scene:text-base scene:md:text-lg font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">The two alleged ringleaders were arrested in Bangkok with Interpol\u2019s help. One of the accused has been extradited to Korea to face 11 charges, including network and economic crimes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-meta-serif-pro scene:font-noto-sans scene:text-base scene:md:text-lg font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">&#8220;This incident of bypassing the non-face-to-face authentication system is &#8216;unprecedented,&#8217; and the vast sums accessed &#8216;could have easily led to an even bigger crime,&#8217;\u201d Oh Gyu-sik, head of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency&#8217;s 2nd Cyber Investigation Unit, said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-meta-serif-pro scene:font-noto-sans scene:text-base scene:md:text-lg font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">&#8220;Given the repeated breaches of Korean government agencies and telecom carriers, a multi-layered defense strategy is essential,&#8221; O. said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-meta-serif-pro scene:font-noto-sans scene:text-base scene:md:text-lg font-normal text-lg md:text-xl md:leading-9 tracking-px text-body gg-dark:text-neutral-100\">He called for &#8220;stricter identity verification&#8221; for telecom services and &#8220;robust international law enforcement coordination&#8221; to combat cross-border cybercrime operations since \u201cthis involved Chinese criminal organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"my-4 border-b border-decryptGridline\">\n<div class=\"text-start p-8 md:py-12 md:px-12 max-w-prose relative\"><span class=\"border-t-4 border-l-4 w-4 h-4 md:border-t-[6px] md:border-l-[6px] md:w-6 md:h-6 border-decryptPurple dark:border-decryptNeon gg-dark:border-cc-pink-2 absolute top-4 left-4 md:top-6 md:left-6\"\/><span class=\"border-t-4 border-l-4 w-4 h-4 md:border-t-[6px] md:border-l-[6px] md:w-6 md:h-6 border-decryptPurple dark:border-decryptNeon gg-dark:border-cc-pink-2 absolute rotate-180 bottom-4 right-4 md:bottom-6 md:right-6\"\/><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"font-akzidenz-grotesk font-bold text-xl md:text-3xl md:text-center gg-dark:text-white\">Daily Debrief<!-- --> Newsletter<\/h3>\n<p>Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In brief A hacking syndicate allegedly stole $28.1 million (\u20a939 billion) from financial and crypto accounts of 258 wealthy Koreans, including celebrities and top business executives. The largest single crypto theft reached $15.4 million (\u20a921.3 billion), though authorities haven&#8217;t specified what portion of the total losses was in crypto. The case exposes systematic vulnerabilities in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[230,225,221,227,226,228,229,60,223,224,222],"class_list":["post-403418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","tag-brave","tag-coinbase","tag-crypto","tag-decentralised","tag-decentralized","tag-decentralized-exchange","tag-erc-20","tag-featured","tag-meme-coin","tag-robinhood","tag-solana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":403422,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403418\/revisions\/403422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dripp.zone\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}