The crypto world is once again making waves! The CEO of an encryption company in South Korea was stabbed multiple times by the victims...

In recent years, the crypto world has become a place of controversy, as too many people are driven by the mentality of making quick money and being played for suckers in this circle. Many projects start with impure motives, causing numerous investors to unknowingly fall into eyewash and see their hard-earned money go down the drain. Therefore, investors and project party are often in a hostile and antagonistic position.

A recent accident precisely substantiates this view.

On August 28, Hugo Hyungsoo Lee, CEO of Haru Invest, a virtual asset custody company in South Korea, appeared in court on time and was suddenly attacked by a 51-year-old listener with a knife. He was rushed to the hospital and is now out of danger.

It is understood that the company is suspected of embezzling digital assets worth about $826 million from more than 16,000 customers, and was detained and prosecuted by Korean prosecutors for fraud in February this year.

As the saying goes, 'there is a head for grievances, and there is a master for debts', all disasters stem from Crypto Assets fraud cases.

To fully understand the origins of this attack, we need to start with a case of Cryptocurrency fraud.

Haru Invest is a virtual asset custody service company in South Korea. According to the information, the company has developed well in the early stage and has been quite active from March 2020 to June 2023, with about 16,000 users at one point.

Haru Invest has always touted itself as a risk-free, high-yield investment platform to the public, but in reality, it has pursued high-risk trading strategies. On June 13, 2023, something unexpected happened. Haru Invest suddenly suspended customer withdrawal services without any prior notice. Delio, another cryptocurrency platform managed by Haru Invest's fund, also suspended withdrawals on the following day.

The sudden suspension of withdrawals has caused a huge uproar among investors, attracting the attention of prosecutors in South Korea. Subsequently, three executives of the company were charged by South Korean prosecutors, alleging that they embezzled user deposits worth approximately $826 million. The incident has also caused a great stir in South Korea, as it is one of the largest cryptocurrency fraud cases in the country.

At around 2 p.m. on August 28, the 15th Criminal Division of the Southern Seoul District Court was conducting the 8th public hearing on this case. During the trial of Lee, the CEO of Haru Invest, for mismanagement of the company's cryptocurrency worth $826 million, a 51-year-old man surnamed Kang suddenly launched an attack on Lee. The attacker was the victim who suffered economic losses in the deposit freeze incident.

Purporting to deposit BTC and others can bring high returns, but actually setting up a fraud trap early...

Haru Invest was established in South Korea and is headquartered in Singapore. According to information on its official website, it has approximately 80,000 members in 140 countries, managing over 2 billion US dollars in assets.

Haru Invest has always been advertised as providing up to 12% annual interest rate return for depositing BTC, Ethereum or the world's largest stablecoin USDT. Such attractive promotion has naturally attracted a large number of users to deposit.

However, in June 2023, Haru Invest suddenly suspended deposits and threw this big pot to its partners. The Korean prosecution immediately banned the company's top executives from leaving the country and launched an investigation. In February of this year, the prosecution officially arrested and prosecuted three executives of the company on charges of fraud under the "Act on Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes" (including Lee, but Lee was released on bail in July this year).

In addition to being accused of stealing 1.1 trillion Korean won, Haru Invest was also exposed to have invested most of the client's deposits in the name of individuals, misappropriating most of the tokens deposited by clients, and falsely promoting that the deposits were managed through 'risk-free distributed investment technology'.

The world is unpredictable, counting the rise and fall of encryption giants in life...

The crypto world is complicated. Many people choose to do some edge-cutting and cross-border things in order to make quick money and get rich overnight. In the end, they may also encounter backlash.

On June 15, 2023, the cryptocurrency market received news that due to the overall market downturn, well-known investment institution Three Arrows Capital received a margin call notification. Zhu Su, co-founder of Three Arrows Capital, also posted a message on his social media, stating that they are in communication with relevant parties and fully committed to resolving this issue, indirectly confirming the rumors.

In fact, Rome wasn't built in a day. The frequent project failures of the Luna project in the past have had a very negative impact on Three Arrows Capital. Before June 23, 2021, Three Arrows Capital started dumping a large amount of Ethereum, and its founder even deleted information related to ETH tokens on his Twitter. Subsequently, Three Arrows Capital was exposed for trapping stETH to repay debts, and even for the scandal of misappropriating user funds.

On September 19, Zhu Su, the founder of Three Arrows Capital, was arrested at Singapore Changi Airport and sentenced to 4 months in prison, confirming the rumors of its explosion.

Undoubtedly, Three Arrows Capital holds a pivotal position in the crypto world, and it is not an exaggeration to call it one of the most successful Crypto Assets Hedging funds in the world. The impact of Three Arrows Capital's incident on the entire Cryptocurrency industry is unprecedented.

Coincidentally, Do Kwon, the founder of the cryptocurrency ecosystem Terraform Labs, also had a similar situation. The cryptocurrency TerraUSD and Luna, created by him, collapsed in May 2022, causing global investors to lose approximately $40 billion and being accused of financial fraud. On September 19, 2022, the local prosecutor's office in Seoul, South Korea, applied for a red notice from Interpol to assist in the arrest of Do Kwon. On March 23, 2023, Do Kwon was arrested in Montenegro, and later, the US prosecutor accused Kwon of defrauding cryptocurrency customers.

Interestingly, the SEC court documents revealed a Slack chat process that took place in 2019. The content shows that Do Kwon bluntly admitted to falsifying volume. There are also many explosive revelations hidden within, providing a wealth of information. For example, Do Kwon stated, 'I can create fake transactions that look real... this incurs costs.'; he made a less positive evaluation of Terra, stating, 'Only investors who believe that Terra is a crown jewel (Hashed, 1kx) and those who operate stake businesses (polychain) will stake.'; even more astonishingly, Do Kwon openly admitted, 'I also pre-mined 1 billion SDT for ourselves' (The Terra ecosystem has a variety of stablecoins, including USD stablecoins, KRW stablecoins, etc. Among them, the most special one is TerraSDT, which is a stablecoin anchored to IMF Special Drawing Rights). All of these revelations are truly shocking.

Perhaps it is because of the lucrative space of Virtual Money that fascinates people, or perhaps everyone in the crypto world has experienced the joy of making quick money. Since the rise of the crypto world, various types of explosive projects and Ponzi Schemes have emerged in endless numbers. Today's star project could easily become tomorrow's trash eyewash; today's crypto world big shots could easily become tomorrow's prisoners. So, as the saying goes, the crypto world is risky, so please be sure to remain calm and cautious.