Coinbit Exchange Offices Raided After Fake Trading Volume Reported

The Coinbit crypto exchange from South Korea got its offices raided by authorities for faking its trading volume and profiting more than $85 million off the illegal scheme as we are reading further in the blockchain news today.

Police in Seoul has forayed the offices of the biggest crypto exchanges in South Korea. The Coinbit exchange has allegedly faked more than 99% of the trading volume. According to the latest news report, the authorities raided the offices of the company and the suspicion is that Coinbit manipulated the users by faking a huge portion of the trading volume. This has reportedly earned the exchange of $85 million in illegal income.

The Police Agency’s Metropolitan Investigation Department of Seoul confiscated a few locations among the main headquarters of the company in the area. Authorities have stated that Coinbit’s owner Choi Mo and his management team have faked the transaction volume and manipulated prices via the multiple ghost accounts. They have purchased a number of tokens between different accounts of the exchange. According to the officials, more than 250,000 monthly active users of the company were affected by the scam.

The scheme included two major exchange accounts with the user’s funds and the first account traded on the major cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Bitcoin, Tether, and XRP trading pairs. The second ghost account was used for trading less known altcoins. The management controlled their supply and manipulated the prices of higher values by dumping the collected tokens to retail traders. As per the news reports, the police found that the accounting procedures of the exchange were suspicious. The legal efforts are aimed at discovering more malpractice and embezzlement.

Coinbit even published the audit report to the Financial Supervisory Service in April. They’ve also received a rejection of opinion from the accounting company. Also, the tax accountant has told the media that “the fact that Coinbit rejected opinions of external audits means that the operations of the company and accounting cannot be trusted.”

Also in South Korea as we reported, Hyperledger based CenterPrime, has to access the APIs of the top South Korean banks that will now share the data feeds on Chainlink. As a result, the app developers can now source their information from major companies such as the Industrial Bank of Korea and Shinhan Bank. The integration of the first broader baking system as the government pushed previously for wider fintech efforts but none of them involve a public blockchain.