South Korean trading platform Haru Invest CEO was attacked in court and stabbed several times, suspected of embezzling $826 million in deposits

Original title: "Cutting leeks causes resentment? Haru Invest CEO attacked with a knife by the victim "blood splattered in court", suspected of embezzling 826 million magnesium deposits"

Original author: Natalia Wu, BlockTempo

Hugo Hyungsoo Lee, the CEO of South Korean virtual asset custodian company "Haru Invest", was detained and prosecuted for fraud in February this year on suspicion of embezzling digital assets worth about 826 million US dollars from more than 16,000 users. On Wednesday, he was attacked with a knife by the victim who was listening to the court. He was stabbed in the neck several times and blood splattered in the court. He was immediately rushed to the hospital.

According to Digital Asset, a local media outlet that was present at the trial, Haru Invest CEO Lee was attacked with a knife by a 51-year-old man named Jiang at around 2:20 p.m. Korean time during his 8th appearance at the Seoul Southern District Court on August 28. It is understood that Jiang was one of the victims of the Haru fraud case, and there were 6 victims present at the trial that day.

Jiang hid a 20-centimeter-long dagger in his clothes and sat in the audience. He suddenly stood up and rushed toward CEO Lee, who was sitting in the defendant's seat, stabbing Lee's neck several times with a knife. Lee fell down with blood, leaving a bloodstain of about 30 centimeters in diameter on the court floor. He was taken to a nearby hospital by ambulance at 2:43 p.m., and his injuries were not life-threatening.

Jiang, who attacked CEO Li because of being deceived by Haru Invest, was arrested by Seoul police after the incident and is now under investigation.

Deposits and withdrawals were suspended in June last year

According to previous reports by the Dynamic Zone, Haru Invest's products claim to provide up to 12% annual interest returns as long as Bitcoin, Ethereum or USDT is deposited, attracting a large number of users to deposit funds. The platform, founded in South Korea and headquartered in Singapore, claims on its official website that it has about 80,000 members in 140 countries and manages more than US$2 billion in assets.

But in June last year, Haru Invest suddenly suspended deposits and withdrawals, leaving the pot to its partners, causing panic among customers. The police and prosecutors immediately banned the company's senior executives from leaving the country and launched an investigation. In February this year, they formally detained and prosecuted three executives of the company for fraud under the Specific Economic Crime Aggravated Punishment Act. CEO Hugo Lee was released on bail in July this year.

The prosecution alleges that the three stole about 1.1 trillion won (about $826 million) worth of cryptocurrency from about 16,000 users, and that Haru invested most of the customer deposits through only one individual, misappropriated most of the tokens deposited by customers, and falsely advertised that the deposits were managed through "risk-free distributed investment technology."

With the CEO of Haru Invest being attacked during the trial, it is also speculated that after seeing the news, Terra public chain CEO Do Kwon, who has accumulated more hatred in South Korea, still wants to be extradited from Montenegro to his home country South Korea for trial?

Do Kwon is still detained in Montenegro Source: Bloomberg

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