South Korean Financial Regulators Look Into Suspicious $3.2 Billion Remittances With Crypto Links

The Korean Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) probes all banks as they investigate suspicious foreign exchange transactions.

South Korean news agency Yonhap reveals in a report on Wednesday that the country’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has discovered suspicious foreign exchange transactions totaling 4.1 trillion won ($3.2 billion) processed by two leading banks with ties to crypto exchanges.

Notably, the FSS is engaged in an investigation of the entire banking industry after leading banks reported suspicious large FX transactions. For example, Woori Bank earlier reported to the FSS that one of its branches processed over 800 billion won (US$617 million) in overseas transfers in the past year. With similar reports from Shinhan Bank, the regulators are looking to see if there is a criminal pattern in this suspicious string of foreign transfers.

“A probe into all banks is currently underway in reflection of worries that there could be such similar transactions,” Lee Bok-Hyun, head of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), reportedly said, adding that a robust task force has been created for the purpose.

According to the report, unspecified crypto exchanges are believed to be involved in the transactions. Bloomberg reports that 5 Woori bank branches processed $1.3 billion in these suspicious remittances within May and June alone. At the same time, Shinhan Bank processed about $1.9 billion from February 2021 to July this year.

At this time, investigators in the country are also looking into the events leading up to the Terra ecosystem collapse in May. As previously reported by The Crypto Basic, several exchanges and the home of Terra co-founder Daniel Shin were raided last week.

Notably, it would not be surprising to see tougher crypto regulations in the country as investigations around the industry intensify. Meanwhile, in a series of tweets today, Terra whistleblower FatMan Terra urged UST victims to join a class action suit against the company and Do Kwon, the Terraform Labs founder in the US.

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