South Korea Charges 23 Over Crypto Laundering Tied to $11M Cambodian Scam Ring

South Korean police have rounded up dozens of people accused of laundering money for a Cambodia-based phishing operation through crypto, as a Chainalysis expert warns that the scam-compound ecosystem in Southeast Asia remains a “persistent concern” despite years of enforcement against criminal networks.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s crime investigation division said that it had referred 23 suspects on charges including breaches of the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act and the Specific Financial Information Act, detaining two figures identified only as A and B, according to a local media report.

The sweep netted 33 additional suspects accused of illegally exchanging $4.1 million (6.3 billion won) in crypto, while the alleged ringleader, identified only as C, remains at large and is now the subject of an Interpol Red Notice.

Investigators also locked down roughly $431,000 (650 million won) in proceeds through pre-indictment confiscation.

Acting on C’s orders, the group moved about $11.1 million (16.8 billion won) between February 2024 and April 2025 by buying the USDT stablecoin, bouncing it between domestic and overseas exchanges, then cashing out into foreign currency or won for a fee, police said.

A review of more than 11,300 linked accounts surfaced 265 instances of phishing harm, spanning voice phishing and investment fraud, worth $17 million (25.7 billion won).

Police urged ordinary users to tread carefully, warning that “acting as an agent for another person’s virtual asset trading or exchanging virtual assets for Korean Won can also be subject to punishment.”

Whack-a-mole

Xue Yin Peh, head of investigative strategy and collections for APAC at Chainalysis, told Decrypt that international scrutiny has produced tangible results against the “persistent problem” surrounding scam compounds and their associated illicit networks.

She pointed to record-breaking actions that happened last year, including UK authorities’ recovery of 61,000 in Bitcoin and a $15 billion forfeiture tied to the Prince Group, saying the cases represent “a meaningful shift toward dismantling the global financial infrastructure that supports crypto fraud.”

Meanwhile, Peh said the transnational criminal networks “have demonstrated significant flexibility and resilience,” relocating within and beyond Southeast Asia and rewiring their models as scrutiny tightens.

They lean on a wider illicit ecosystem of laundering networks, infrastructure, and trafficked labor that she described as “remarkably resilient,” with new providers “quickly filling gaps left by enforcement takedowns.”

Stablecoins such as USDT remain the preferred vehicle for illicit flows because, as Peh noted, criminals use them “for largely the same reasons legitimate users do”: liquidity, portability, and relative price stability.

On-chain transactions stay “transparent and traceable,” she remarked, and issuers can freeze funds once illicit use surfaces.

Cases like this “certainly can, and already have” strengthened the argument for tighter global oversight of stablecoins, Peh said, adding that stablecoin issuers should be part of the “fraud-prevention front line” and that clearer legal frameworks are needed to help issuers, exchanges, banks, and authorities coordinate when victim funds are at risk.

Scam compound crackdown

Last November, Interpol branded scam-compound networks a global transnational threat, and U.S. agencies stood up a multi-agency Scam Center Strike Force the same month to chase the money.

The Strike Force has since frozen, seized, and forfeited more than $580 million in crypto tied to networks running out of Burma, Cambodia, and Laos.

Around the same time, Taiwanese prosecutors charged 62 people over links to the network of Cambodian tycoon Chen Zhi, chairman of Prince Group, who was extradited to China earlier this year amid allegations tying his empire to cyber scam networks.

In April, Cambodia advanced its toughest anti-scam law yet by royal decree, threatening compound bosses with up to life behind bars, though analysts cautioned the measure may shunt the trade across borders rather than end it.