South Korea Uncovers $101.7M Crypto Laundering Scheme Linked to Cross-Border Payments

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South Korea’s Korean Customs Service has broken up the largest crypto money laundering operation involving nearly $101.7 million (150 billion Won). As per the reports from Yonhap, three Chinese nationals were arrested, and this illegal activity ran from September 2021 to June 2025. It involved the illegal cross-border movement of funds using cryptocurrency.

How the Network Laundered Funds Through Cross-Border Crypto Transactions

Investigators said that the criminals took money from the customers using Chinese payment apps like WeChat Pay and Alipay. These apps are faster outside South Korea’s banking system. Then they used multiple crypto accounts to buy cryptocurrencies in many countries. These purchased cryptos were then transferred to the south korea based crypto wallets. It was then converted into the Korean won and withdrawn locally. These transfers were labelled as trade fees, overseas education costs, and cosmetic surgery fees for foreigners to build trust on this transfers and to avoid raising suspicions.

Authorities noticed that spending a small amount of money in different countries to buy cryptocurrencies can bypass the strict foreign exchange and AML regulations and can easily move money into South Korea under the appearance of legitimate spending. 

South Korean Authorities Strengthen Crypto Security Measures Following the Case

After this case, the South Korean government and authorities are tightening the checking of crypto transfers under 1 million to avoid creating loopholes for the small transfers to avoid identity verification. As per data from the Korean Customs Service, it shows that 36,684 suspicious crypto transactions were flagged between January and August 2025, which is more than the previous two years combined. Regulators say that crypto crime attempts are rising, and monitoring is becoming much stricter. 

Officials say that even though digital assets can move across the border, the blockchain data can easily be traceable and can track the movement using blockchain analysis and cooperation from the exchanges, which helps to uncover the money laundering networks. 

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