South Korea’s Seoul Southern Regional Court, Haru Invest CEO Lee Hyung-SOO opened a $ 650 million fraud case. The court said that there was not enough evidence that Lee was deliberately deceiving investors.

In June 2023, Haru Invest had suddenly stopped money shooting and closed his office after collecting funds by promising to investors with a return of up to 25 percent.

💰 How much is the number and loss of investors?

In the first indictment, prosecutors claimed that Haru has collected $ 1,02 billion from 16,000 investors. However, then the figure was revised and reduced to 650 million dollars from 6,000 investors. The prosecutors requested 23 years in prison for Lee.

🔪 Knife attack in the courtroom

CEO Lee was attacked by an investor in the courtroom in one of the hearings in August 2023. The attacker, Haru platform has lost 100 BTC and therefore attacked said. Lee did not have a life -threatening, while the attacker was sentenced to 5 years in prison.

⚖️ Court Justification: “No deliberate deception”

The court said that Lee’s actions did not constitute a crime of deception within the scope of the criminal law. However, he also noted that administrative negligence was clearly found. The decision was also emphasized that there was a liquidity crisis that occurs after the FTX bankruptcy, and therefore the intelligence was not formed after the collapse of Haru.

Lee’s business model, unlike other classic ponzi or “Rug Pull” -style fraud, was a system that produces real profits.

👥 What happened to other managers?

Park and Song, two co -CEOs of Blockcrafters, were acquitted.

Haru’s COO Kang was sentenced to 2 years of imprisonment for embezzlement while justifying fraud. (Note: Only the surnames of people were announced in accordance with the laws of Korea.)

🧾 Civil responsibility continues

The court emphasized that this decision only abolishes criminal responsibility and that Lee and the company did not eliminate civilian debts against investors. Lee said that he had worked on the bankruptcy process to compensate the damages in his previous statements.

In the collapse of crypto markets, the “founders” are generally accused of directly. However, this case presented an important example in terms of the discrimination of the management error by legal intent.

The laundering of Lee may be a precedent for Haru -like structures; But the grievance of damaged investors is still obvious.