{"id":92971,"date":"2026-01-09T12:05:03","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T09:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=92971"},"modified":"2026-01-09T14:44:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T11:44:25","slug":"south-korean-court-sanctions-bitcoin-seizure-from-exchanges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/south-korean-court-sanctions-bitcoin-seizure-from-exchanges\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korean Court Sanctions Bitcoin Seizure from Exchanges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time, South Korea&#8217;s Supreme Court has deemed it lawful to seize bitcoins from exchange wallets in criminal cases, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chosun.com\/national\/court_law\/2026\/01\/08\/HNLU2XEGLBHSBNXTF5DOY2GRKQ\/\">local media<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Previously, only the confiscation of assets for the state was permitted.<\/p>\n<p>The precedent was set in the case of a user known as &#8220;A,&#8221; suspected of money laundering. In January 2020, police seized 55.6 BTC (then approximately 600 million won) from his exchange account.<\/p>\n<p>The defense filed an appeal, arguing that cryptocurrency on platform accounts is not a physical object. According to the lawyers, it is not subject to the Criminal Procedure Code&#8217;s provisions on the seizure of physical evidence.<\/p>\n<p>The court rejected this argument and deemed the investigators&#8217; actions lawful. The ruling stated that objects of seizure include not only tangible items but also electronic information.<\/p>\n<p>The judges identified bitcoin as an electronic token with economic value. The owner can manage and transfer it, making the asset a legitimate target for law enforcement seizure.<\/p>\n<p>Lawyers believe the verdict removes legal ambiguity.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators now have a clear basis for freezing funds on exchanges like Upbit and Bithumb during the investigation phase.<\/p>\n<p>In 2018, South Korea&#8217;s Supreme Court recognized digital gold as an asset subject to confiscation, and in 2021, <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/south-korea-to-tighten-crackdown-on-crypto-scammers\">extended<\/a> fraud laws to cryptocurrencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time, South Korea&#8217;s Supreme Court has deemed it lawful to seize bitcoins from exchange wallets in criminal cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"South Korea's Supreme Court allows bitcoin seizure from exchanges in criminal cases.","creation_source":"ai_translated","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"112","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"South Korea's Supreme Court allows bitcoin seizure from exchanges in criminal cases.","is_update":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92971"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92972,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92971\/revisions\/92972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}