UPbit, one of the largest crypto exchanges in South Korea has seen three of its senior executives being charged with fraud. These officials were three of the most important people in the company. Song Chi-Hyung, the founder of the organisation, being one of them.
The police have taken them down on the charge of fraudulent transactions worth US $226.2 Billions in crypto between September and December 2017. According to the reports by the police, fake corporate accounts were used to inflate the trading volume of the exchange.
The trio has been also involved in selling 11,550 BTCs to customers through rigged transactions to earn 133.8 million in US Dollars.
UPbit issued a notice on Thursday, denying any involvement in any such activity. The notice stated that “The Company provided liquidity to the Company’s corporate account in order to stabilize the trading market at the beginning of the service opening. This period is from September 24, 2017, to December 11, 2017.”
The exchange clearly stated that it has not profited or benefited from the process. It has although stated that it had conceded some of the transactions for marketing purposes.
UPbit’s head office in the Gangnam-gu district has already been raided early this year, in March. The prosecutors seized the hard disks as well as the accounting books. The company was accused of selling cryptocurrencies to customers without actually holding them.
This is not the only exchange that is under inspection, offices of the exchanges, Bithumb and Coinone, too were investigated for tax evasions by the police and the tax officials.
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