The courtroom stabbing incident occurred only a few weeks after a Chinese gang attempted to steal more than $2 million worth of crypto by using a gun on a luxurious estate in Thailand.
South Korean chief executive of a crypto company hacked in court, and stabbed in the neck several times.
The victim was Hugo Hyungsoo Lee, the head of a South Korean firm, Haru Invest, which specializes in getting profits from cryptocurrencies.
This was during the Haru Invest trial where three of the firm’s executives were in the dock for stealing $826m worth of cryptocurrency from 16,000 users.
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A section of the local media outfit Digital Asset was bun to the fact that the attacker, a man in his 40s who invested in Haru Invest and was among the victims, jumped up from the guest seat and attempted to stab Lee on the neck with a small knife. Lee was taken to hospital as soon as possible.
The Haru Invest ceased investing and allowing redemption effective June 13, 2023. The next day, deposits and management company Delio also temporarily suspended withdrawal because some of its funds were invested in Haru Invest.
The Haru Invest fraud case: What we know
The South Korean prosecutors accused three of the key executives of Haru Invest of embezzling $826 million of the users’ funds in the form of digital assets from its 16,000 users.
In June 2024, Lee was accused within the articles of the fraud case, for the suspension of deposits and withdrawals.
South Korean prosecutors arrested three senior officials of the crypto yield platform including the chief executive officer in February of 2024.
As claimed by the prosecution, the executives of Haru Invest lured its customers into paying their coins back to them through repurchases with most of the precepts of the coins reinvested between March 2020 and June 2023. The exes have been accused of deceiving the public that Haru was running a legitimate business by using ”risk-free diversified investing strategies”.
Lee was then released from arrest in July before the trial.
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Crypto crimes: From cyber to physical attacks
This is quite shocking because while a few years ago, the problem that applied to owners of cryptocurrencies was mainly cyber-attacks and hacks, now there are more and more physically violent attacks linked to digital assets.
Gang of four Chinese nationals threatened the victim to transfer $2 million worth of cryptocurrency On August 4, four Chinese gangsters armed with guns invaded a confined estate at Pathum Thani in Thailand.
In early July, four men kidnapped a foreigner in Kyiv, Ukraine, who was known to have bitcoin BTC takers down to $59,734. The attackers talked the victim into sending his 3 Bitcoins to the attackers’ wallets and then they choked the man.
This comes after an incident on 17 June in London when three armed individuals with machetes stormed a home resulting in the owner transacting 1000 ethers ETH tickers which went for 2,545 dollars or 2 euros. 5 million. Thankfully, the poor man did not even get a physical attack on him.