A Seoul court has acquitted Korean influencer Park, known as “Coin King Jonber Kim”, after prosecutors sought a 20-year prison sentence over an alleged $253 million cryptocurrency pump-and-dump scheme.
The 45-year-old, whose real name is Park, was cleared of financial crimes linked to the promotion and collapse of two digital tokens, Podo coin and ATube. The ruling was delivered on October 15 in one of South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency cases.
Park built a public profile by displaying luxury cars and other signs of wealth on social media, while claiming his fortune had been made through digital assets.
Prosecutors argued that he was the central figure behind the creation of the two tokens. They said Park made misleading promises to investors and manipulated the value of the cryptocurrencies, allowing him to take $253 million from the schemes and defraud a large number of buyers.
They had also asked the court to confiscate more than $14 million from Park’s estate.
However, the Seoul Southern District Court said the prosecution had not shown a direct connection between Park’s alleged conduct and changes in the token prices.
The court accepted that the white paper documents used to promote the projects contained deceptive proposals. But it said there was insufficient evidence to prove that the documents, by themselves, had caused investors to buy the digital currencies.
“Even among the victims whose statements were confirmed, there are cases where they purchased based on blogs, Youtube, communities, or acquaintances’ introductions rather than white papers or the defendants’ materials, or where the purchasing circumstances were not revealed,” the court concluded.
The acquittal comes as South Korea increases its efforts to tackle cryptocurrency fraud and market manipulation.
In August, the same court sentenced Jeong Sang-ho, the former chief executive of digital asset bank Delio, to 15 years in prison. Delio was declared insolvent in November 2024, and the court found that Jeong had embezzled $49.2 million in customer assets.
South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service has also introduced artificial intelligence technology to identify and prevent suspected cryptocurrency price manipulation at the country’s largest crypto venues. The system is reportedly designed to recognise several price movements commonly associated with such schemes.
South Korea’s top court has drafted a civil execution amendment that would establish explicit legal procedures for freezing, seizing and liquidating virtual assets.
