South Korea’s crypto CEO has been stabbed in court in the Haru Invest fraud trial.
The CEO of a South Korean crypto firm has been stabbed multiple times in the neck during court proceedings in Seoul.
The victim is Hugo Hyengsoo Lee, CEO of Haru Invest, a South Korean crypto monetization company.
Lee came under fire in court during the Haru Invest trial, in which three company executives stole $826 million in stolen cryptocurrency from around 16,000 users.
Local media outlet Digital Asset reported that the assailant, who was in his 40s, suddenly got up from the passenger seat and tried to stab Lee in the neck with a small knife. Lee was immediately taken to the hospital.
Haru Invest suddenly stopped withdrawing funds on June 13, 2023. The next day, Delio, a deposit and management company with some money in Haru Invest, also stopped withdrawing funds.
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The Haru Investment Fraud Case: What We Know
South Korean prosecutors have charged three senior executives of Haru Invest with stealing digital assets worth $826 million from its 16,000 users.
As part of the fraud case, Lee was investigated in June 2024 with a ban on deposits and withdrawals.
South Korean prosecutors arrested three crypto product platform executives in February 2024, including the CEO.
By redistributing the assets between March 2020 and June 2023, Haru Invest executives misappropriated the coins deposited by their clients.
Lee was then released from prison in July before his trial.
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Crypto Crimes: From Cyber to Physical Attacks
While cyberattacks and hacking are the biggest concerns for cryptocurrency holders, we are seeing physical attacks involving digital assets.
In the year On August 4, a group of four Chinese nationals broke into a gated property in Pathum Thani, Thailand, and forced the victim to hand over $2 million worth of cryptocurrency at gunpoint.
In early July, four men abducted a foreigner in Kiev, Ukraine, who was known to be in possession of Bitcoin (BTC). The attackers forced the victim to transfer 3 bitcoins to their wallet before strangling them.
This follows an incident in London on June 17, when three armed men invaded a house and forced the owner to hand over 1,000 Ether (ETH) worth more than $2.5 million. Fortunately, the victim was not physically harmed.
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