Haru Investment officials were arrested in South Korea for robbery
South Korean prosecutors have finally arrested several executives at troubled cryptocurrency exchange platform Haru Invest, which stopped issuing funds in June 2023.
The Seoul South District Prosecutor's Office's Virtual Asset Crime Investigation Division has arrested three key figures behind Haru Invest, local news agency Yonhap reported on February 6.
Among those arrested are the CEO of Haru Investor and two other executives, the prosecutor announced. The regulators were arrested on charges of stealing 1.1 trillion won ($830 million) in cryptocurrencies from 16,000 Haru Invest clients.
By redistributing the assets between March 2020 and June 2023, Haru Invest executives misappropriated the coins deposited by their clients.
The news comes shortly after Haru Invest posted another “no data” announcement. The company took to X on February 4, saying, “There are no specific updates to share this week.” The statement was signed by Hugo Lee, CEO of Haru Invest. It reads:
“So far, there is no information about the investigation and overall situation following the arrest of Bang Jun-ho, the main shareholder of B&S Holdings. We will continue our various efforts for asset recovery as we have been doing.
Haru Invest abruptly stopped issuing on June 13, 2023. Delio, which had some of its funds with Haru Invest, a deposit and management company, also stopped issuing the next day.
Related: S. Korea Regulator to Discuss Bitcoin ETF with SEC Chief Gary Gensler
Haru Invest went on to say that the issues stemmed from fraudulent activity by consignment operator B&S Holdings, formerly known as Aventus.
In the year Established in 2019, Haru Invest operates a cryptocurrency product platform that markets its services with the opportunity to earn annual interest rates of up to 12% on cryptocurrency deposits.
Following the withdrawal ban, DeLeo and other aggrieved investors filed a class-action lawsuit against Haru in June 2023.
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