Kim Nam-guk's '6 Billion Coin Suspicion', Prosecution Also Launches Investigation

Prosecutors are conducting an investigation into allegations of abnormal cryptocurrency transactions involving Kim Nam-guk, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea.

Kim Nam-guk, Member of the Democratic Party of Korea Photo by Yonhap News

According to the prosecution on the 7th, the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office received records related to Kim's cryptocurrency transactions from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) last year and is examining whether any illegal activities occurred. The FIU reportedly identified that Kim withdrew all approximately 800,000 WEMIX coins he held in early last year, classified this as an abnormal transaction, and notified the prosecution.

It is known that Kim deposited these WEMIX coins, worth about 6 billion KRW at the time, into his cryptocurrency wallet between January and February last year and disposed of them all before the implementation of the Travel Rule, known as the "coin real-name system," in March last year.

Accordingly, the cryptocurrency exchange where Kim's wallet was registered reported the related transaction details to the FIU, which judged it as an abnormal transaction and notified the prosecution, handing over the relevant materials. Generally, when a large volume of coins is traded, the exchange reports to the FIU, which then determines whether the transaction is abnormal and informs investigative agencies.

The prosecution requested a warrant for account tracing based on FIU data regarding Kim, but it was reportedly dismissed by the court. Despite this, the prosecution has not closed the case and continues the related investigation.

In response, Kim emphasized that the transactions were normal. On his Facebook page the previous day, Kim stated, "Although the investigative agency requested a warrant, considering the warrant issuance rate exceeds 90%, the warrant was dismissed due to a lack of necessity for investigation," adding, "I believe the investigative agency also realized there was no problem."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.