Haru Invest crypto platform executives arrested on charges of stealing $826 million

The company froze customer deposits last June

06.02.2024 - 10:38

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2 min

What’s new? The Seoul Southern District Prosecutor’s Office has arrested and detained three executives of the Haru Invest crypto platform on charges of stealing 1,1 trillion Korean won ($826 million) worth of assets from 16 000 users. The platform offered the Earn Plus program with returns of up to 12%, falsely claiming that deposits were managed using “risk-free distributed investment techniques.”

The Block’s material

What else is known? Korean authorities launched an investigation into Haru Invest and its partner, crypto lender Delio after both platforms suddenly alternately suspended withdrawals on June 14 last year. At the same time, Haru Invest filed a lawsuit against partner B&S Holdings, accusing it of filing false reports and losing $260 million as a result of the collapse of the US crypto exchange FTX in November 2022.

In January this year, prosecutors also issued an arrest warrant for the majority shareholder of B&S Holdings, whose name was not disclosed. The Prosecutor’s Office said it would make every effort to return the stolen funds to the victims.

Last June, it was reported that Haru Invest was suspected of secretly transferring client funds to FTX. Thus, the two largest transactions of the platform are related to FTX and recorded in the summer of 2022.

In July, Delio allowed the possibility of termination of operations due to the seizure of assets as part of the proceedings.

In January, the Korean crypto community suspected the Manta Network project of a token dump: a local employee received 2 million MANTA, sold them on Bithumb 5 minutes after listing at a profit of up to 100x, and transferred the funds to his personal wallet. The team assured that the distribution was done under tokenomics.

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