The CEO of Haru Invest was stabbed during his trial in a Korean courtroom

Share this article

The CEO of the alleged Korean Ponzi scheme, Haru Invest, was attacked during a trial in Seoul on August 28. reported by local news station Digital Asset, Hugo Hyungsoo Lee was stabbed multiple times in the neck.

The attacker is a 51-year-old man, identified as Kang, who is said to be a Haru investor who lost money after the firm froze withdrawals in June 2023.

Lee was rushed to the scene about ten minutes later, and an ambulance took him to a nearby hospital 23 minutes after the attack. According to News1, Lee is in critical condition.

The lawsuit is related to charges Lee and two other Haru Invest executives face for allegedly stealing $826 million from investors. The company, which was active from March 2020 to June 2023, promised earnings based on crypto deposits, but suddenly stopped paying its customers.

Lee was arrested and charged with fraud under the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes Act in February and released on bail last month.

Over $13 billion in losses

The promise of fixed earnings based on investors’ lack of knowledge about crypto has caused billions of dollars in losses worldwide.

OneCoin is believed to have defrauded investors of $5.8 billion after convincing them that the company’s symbol was the “Bitcoin Killer.” The scheme operated in a multi-level marketing structure and rewarded the onboarding of new members with cash and OneCoin tokens.

Bitconnect is another infamous Ponzi scheme that used crypto-related buzzwords to attract unsuspecting investors. Promising monthly returns of 40% by locking Bitconnect’s BCC token, the scheme disappeared with $3.5 billion from investors.

The latest of the three biggest crypto Ponzi schemes is PlusToken, a scheme orchestrated to lure Chinese, Korean and Japanese investors into the possibility of earning 10% to 30% monthly. After attracting over 3 million investors, PlusToken shut down in 2019 and ran away with $3 billion.

Authorities were able to arrest most of the people connected to PlusToken and recover $4 billion in crypto due to price fluctuations.

Share this article