Thai Police Bust $15M Crypto Scam Ring Targeting Hundreds of Koreans

Thai authorities have paid a criminal company of $ 15 million that is the victim of more than 870 South Koreans, in what an expert calls a case study of “Meerlagig Witwas”.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Economic Crime Investigation Division announced the arrest of 25 members of “Lungo Company” on Monday, a fraud that has used multiple swindling tactics, including romance schedules, crypto fraud and offers from Neplottering compensation.

The Thai police have held the leader and eight core members separately, who, according to A Local Media report.

“In contrast to earlier crime rings that usually trusted in a single method, this group used several tactics in a systematic way,” said a police officer.

Victims were reportedly manipulated in depositing money on fake platforms or buying worthless crypto under the guise of compensation for data breaches.

Cybercrime consultant David Sehyeon Baek told DecryptThe group would use “extensive OTC broker networks that are active throughout Thailand, especially in tourist areas such as Pattaya”, where these operations are noticed without a permit, “facilitates crypto-to-to-fiat conversions while the traditional bank overview is circumvented”.

The Lungo company probably used chain hopping tactics, he said, “quickly exchanged funds about different block chains to hide transaction paths” by converting different crypto over multiple networks.

“Cross-chain crime has risen worldwide, tripled in the past two years,” as decentralized fairs, cross-chain bruggae and no-ki-cin swap services make fast anonymous transfers possible, Baek said.

This effectively forces researchers to spend countless hours manually tracing funds over multiple protocols. “

The organization would operate nesting services – non -authorized trading activities within regulated fairs that enable customers to trade “, while any connection with the underlying regulated infrastructure is hidden,” Baek noted.

“Technically, these schemes are involved in Shell companies that open accounts in several large fairs using fraudulent references, and then offer adapted interfaces with which customers can act while hiding any connection with the underlying regulated infrastructure,” he added.

This “parasite fairs” processes almost “100 times more illegal volume than their regular host platforms,” ​​said the expert, and experienced premium fees, usually between “7% and 15%”, in exchange for anonymity.

Baek said that extra techniques probably include crypto-funded prepaid cards for ATM recordings, the money laundering of casino to produce “clean” profits and split micro-transactions into thousands of transfers to stay “under the detection thresholds”.

For the final cash-out, the expert said that the network almost certainly turned to unregulated OTC brokers in Thailand and neighboring areas of law, making it “high volume cash-out with minimal control” and probably coordinated via coded apps such as “Telegram and WeChat”.

Last month, The Seoul police have dismantled An international hacking that has stolen $ 28.1 million from the richest individuals in South Korea, including BTS member Jungkook and top company leaders, after violating their financial and crypto accounts.