The head of Dunamu, operator of South Korea’s market-leading Upbit crypto exchange, has recently been acquitted of manipulating platform data. The Supreme Court of Korea cleared Dunamu Chairman Song Chi-hyung of fraud charges under the Aggravated Punishment Act for Specific Economic Crimes.
The accusations against Song and a group of executives involved manipulating order volumes on Upbit by creating fake member accounts between September and November 2017. These accounts were created in the name of non-existent customers, and prosecutors claimed that Song and others used them to buy and sell Bitcoin, artificially boosting trading volumes. It was alleged that approximately 11,550 BTC were moved around 26,000 wallets, resulting in nearly $93 million worth of transactions and generating profits of almost $114 million for the group.
Initially, a district court cleared Song and the executives of the charges, a decision upheld by a branch of the high court. However, prosecution officials persisted and brought the case to the Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision, all three courts agreed that the prosecution had used illegal methods to obtain evidence.
During the trial, it was revealed that the prosecution had illegally accessed information from Dunamu’s cloud accounts provided by Amazon. The defense argued that although the prosecution had been granted conditional search and seize warrants, these did not authorize the search of remote servers. Furthermore, defense lawyers contended that the authorities exceeded their authority by confiscating laptops and USB storage devices belonging to the executives.
The Supreme Court not only acquitted Song but also cleared the firm’s Chief Financial Officer and Data Office Director of charges related to forgery and fraud. This decision underscores the importance of following legal protocols and respecting individuals’ privacy rights in investigations.
