a fake ceo South Korean The crypto exchange that duped nearly 50,000 customers out of a total of $2.3 billion will spend the next 25 years behind bars – after the Supreme Court found him guilty of fraud.
yonhap Reported that the Supreme Court rejected the appeal of Wei Global Exchange CEO, surnamed Lee, and upheld the high court’s guilty verdict.
Although the “exchange” was designed to look like a real trading platform in every way — complete with a website that featured real-time coin tickers — the court learned that it was anything but.
Lee masterminded V Global. But the court heard that he had previously used a crypto-themed multi-level marketing strategy to defraud investors on another, now-defunct exchange.
V Global Exchange used a “tiered membership system”. It promised to pay members in the platform’s own tokens for recruiting new members. Later these coins also turned out to be fake.
The court heard that the platform was operational between July 2020 and April 2021.
V Global promises 300% growth on initial stake from customers. But finally the police… stepped into After appearing in 2021 to groups of angry investors, they complained that they could not withdraw coins or fiat from the platform.
CEO awaits final verdict for 25 years of service as bogus crypto executive
Li and several senior executives of Wei Global were prosecuted last year. Senior executives were jailed for between four and 14 years – along with the company’s second most powerful executive (after Lee) given an eight-year term Late in 2022.
Most of the officers – apart from Lee – were tried together.
In Lee’s first (district court) trial, the CEO was given a 22-year prison sentence – although prosecutors and victims’ groups Pushed for maximum life sentence,
The case was then reviewed by the High Court, which increased Lee’s sentence to 25 years and ordered him to pay a fine of over $8 million.
The Supreme Court – highest in the land – upheld the High Court’s decision on 13 January, confirming that the High Court was correct in its interpretation of the law.
The court heard evidence of how Li had used “sophisticated” “pyramid scheme” methods to ensure that old “members” of the exchange were paid with funds provided by new “recruits”.
The High Court is currently in the process of reviewing the cases of the remaining V Global executives. The group has been found guilty of “destroying evidence” and “interfering with a police investigation”, in addition to fraud-related violations.
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