{"id":9921,"date":"2024-01-18T15:07:51","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T13:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/former-bithumb-chairman-acquitted-of-fraud-charges-again\/"},"modified":"2024-01-18T15:07:51","modified_gmt":"2024-01-18T13:07:51","slug":"former-bithumb-chairman-acquitted-of-fraud-charges-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/former-bithumb-chairman-acquitted-of-fraud-charges-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Bithumb Chairman Acquitted of Fraud Charges Again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On January 18th, the Seoul High Court acquitted Lee Jong-hoon, the former chairman of the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb, for the second time on charges of fraud and deceiving investors out of $70 million, according to local <a href=\"https:\/\/www.etoday.co.kr\/news\/view\/2322548\">media<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit against Lee was filed by cosmetic surgeon and co-founder of the Blockchain Exchange Alliance consortium, Kim Byung-gun, in July 2021.<\/p>\n<p>According to Kim, the former exchange chairman demanded an advance payment of 100 billion won (~$750,000) during negotiations for the acquisition of Bithumb Holdings in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>In return, Lee allegedly promised to list the BXA token on the platform. However, instead, he sold the transferred coins for $25 million to BK Group. Retail investors also purchased tokens worth about $45 million.<\/p>\n<p>Kim claimed that the Bithumb chairman embezzled the funds received. These charges could have led to a sentence of up to eight years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>Lee&#8217;s lawyers denied the allegations, stating that the token sales were conducted under a &#8220;typical stock sale contract.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Early last year, the Seoul Central District Court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hankyung.com\/finance\/article\/202301038848B\">found<\/a> Lee not guilty, as the evidence of his promises regarding the BXA listing was deemed insubstantial. The higher court has now upheld the verdict based on the same facts.<\/p>\n<p>In January 2023, South Korean prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Bithumb owner Kang Jong-hyun, suspected of embezzlement and manipulating the stock prices of several affiliated firms.<\/p>\n<p>According to the investigation, his brother Ji Yeon, head of the exchange&#8217;s subsidiaries Inbiogen and Bucket Studio, assisted in stock manipulation through the issuance of convertible bonds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On January 18th, the Seoul High Court acquitted Lee Jong-hoon, the former chairman of the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb, for the second time on charges of fraud and deceiving investors out of $70 million, according to local media. The lawsuit against Lee was filed by cosmetic surgeon and co-founder of the Blockchain Exchange Alliance [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[973,1162,974],"class_list":["post-9921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bithumb","tag-court-cases","tag-south-korea"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"74","promo_type":"","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9921","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=9921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}