Virtual Assets Used for Illegal Forex Deals
The Korea Customs Service announced on Nov. 6 that illegal foreign exchange transactions uncovered in the first three quarters of this year amount to 2.396 trillion won, whereas last year’s total is 1.3495 trillion won. “Of this year’s total, no less than 2.37 trillion won is illegal remittances and exchanges while property concealment and money laundering constitute 8.2 billion won and 16.4 billion won, respectively,” it said.
The uncovered illegal foreign exchange transactions amounted to 6.73 trillion won in 2014 but decreased to 4.7141 trillion won in 2015. It further decreased to 3.4461 trillion won in 2019 and dropped to 719 billion won in 2020.
According to experts, the rebounds in 2021 and this year have to do with cryptocurrency-based illegal transactions in that exchange in and overseas remittance from South Korea can be carried out only at designated banks and institutions and reporting is mandatory depending on the amount.
According to the Korea Customs Service, cryptocurrency-based illegal foreign exchange transactions accounted for 75.8 percent of the total in the first half of this year and those involving China account for more than 64 percent of the amount uncovered in the first three quarters of this year.
Experts point out that the amount of 2.396 trillion won may be just a tip of an iceberg. The prosecution and the Financial Supervisory Service are currently investigating US$5 billion remittances from foreign futures accounts at NH conducted from August 2019 to July this year. In addition, the Financial Supervisory Service recently inspected 12 banks to detect US$7.22 billion of abnormal foreign currency remittances related to 82 companies.