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Tim Alper

Author

Tim Alper

About Author

Tim Alper is a British journalist and features writer who has worked at Cryptonews.com since 2018. He has written for media outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, and Chosun Ilbo. He has also worked…

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Last updated: 

July 30, 2025

South Korean prosecutors probing the former President Yoon Suk-yeol and the former First Lady Kim Keon-hee have interrogated the suspected crypto fraudster Jon Bur Kim (real surname Park).

Park, a crypto market maker and luxury sports car collector, has been indicted for crypto fraud. Prosecutors think he issued and manipulated two so-called “scam coins,” and manipulated their prices by issuing fake news about the tokens.

However, prosecutors earlier this month established a possible link between Park’s case and that of the former First Lady.

Kim Keon-hee is accused of peddling influence, stock manipulation, and other corruption-related charges.

Former President Yoon: Arrest Warrant Incoming?

Prosecutors are investigating Kim Keon-hee along with Yoon, who failed in a bid to declare martial law in South Korea in early December last year.

The former President was later impeached. He has since been charged with various corruption-related offences.

But Former President Yoon has twice refused to respond to court summons requests. This has led prosecution officials to consider requesting an arrest warrant.

Yonhap reported that the probe has also expanded to Yoon and Kim’s associates. The South Korean news agency wrote that the special prosecution team is believed to be investigating the former senior prosecutor Kim Sang-min.

Prosecutors believe Kim Sang-min may have “received illicit money” from the chief suspect in a crypto fraud case.

Media outlets assume that this is Park, who is accused of embezzling 80.9 billion won ($58.1 million) worth of investors’ money.

Prosecutors think that Park gave Kim Sang-min money to pay for motor vehicle rental fees. Kim Sang-min then allegedly used this money to pay for the vehicles as he attempted to win the People Power Party nomination for the Changwon Uichang district seat ahead of the April 10 legislative election last year.

Kim Sang-min was ultimately unsuccessful in his bid, and was eliminated during the primaries. But prosecution officials appear to think that Kim Keon-hee used her influence to help him run.

Rug Pull Suspect Summoned

The latest development appears to confirm reports from earlier this month. These claimed that the special prosecution team had asked to see the Park/scam coin case files.

Prosecutors think that Park and a CEO surnamed Moon stole hundreds of billions of won. They think the duo issued and listed a suspected scam coin named Atube in 2021.

They have also accused Park of masterminding a rug pull scam for a token named Podo Coin, also in 2021.

Today, on the second day of the tornado cash trial, the prosecutors and defense provided the case defendants with an opposite account in their opening statement about why the Roman storm started tornado cash.

These statements came after the ju apprentice selection process was completed.

The judges consist of seven women and five men. The two members of the ju apprentice are four in their 60s and 40s, one in their 30s and five in their 20s. Eight have bachelor’s degrees, three have high school degrees, and one has a master’s degree.

The ju judge stood up shortly after 2pm EST, just before both the prosecutors and the defense issued their opening statement.

An opening statement from the prosecutor

The prosecutor first submitted his opening statement.

From the prosecutor’s team, Mosley faced a ju-degree trooper and was plagued by the notion that Storm created tornado cash with the main motivation to enrich himself.

Mosley said hundreds of millions of dollars worth of codes have been poured through tornado cash, and the storm and his co-conspirators Roma Semenov and Alexei Pertsev chose not to do so, although tornado cash is not appealing to criminals.

He also cited how tornado cash promoted sanctions violations as North Korean hackers used the service to wash their crypto funds.

He admixed funds stolen from hacks in the online crypto game Axie Infinitiy by North Korean hackers using tornado cache, and Storm’s Thas and and and and tornado crinado crinado craws on tornado crinado craws on tornado washing washing washing washal (defense admitted in its opening statement that Storm was wearing such a T-shirt in “bad taste.”

Mosley also said the evidence also shows that the tornado cash Storm and his co-conspirators intentionally operated a code “washing machine” to wash funds for bad actors, and that he was unable to design the tornado cash when he allegedly failed to make changes to the tornado cash design.

“He chose to wash his money multiple times,” said Mosley of Storm.

Mosley added that Storm attempted to “hidden his actions” by using his account to “cash out” his multi-million dollar songs. (No details are provided as to whether this is a bank or crypto exchange account.)

Finally, Mosley said the evidence in the incident included encrypted chats about the tornado cash business. Defendant’s communication with Crypto Hacks victims, funds flowing through Tornado’s cash. A document showing that Storm used cash out in August 2022 using another person’s account.

Opening statement from Defense

Axel, a member of the defense team, spoke to the ju umpire after Mosley.

She began by painting Storm as a hardworking immigrant who likes computer programming, adding that he works for many reputable high-tech companies, including Amazon.

She said Storm created tornado cash to resolve financial privacy issues when trading on public blockchains, claiming that he had none of the bad actors who used the service.

“Roman had nothing to do with the hacking or fraud that the government was talking about,” Axel said. “Bad actors misused tornado cash to cover their trucks.”

Axel also shared that it was a conversation with Ethereum creator Vitak Buterin (the blockchain on which tornado cash is being deployed), which prompted him to create tornado cash.

She spoke about how Storm met Butarin at the meeting and asked him what would be an important project to work on for Ethereum. Axel said Butarin told Storm that transaction privacy is an important issue to be resolved. Storm soon began developing tornado cash.

Axel then walked through the Juju jury through a series of illustrations explaining how Ethereum works and how tornado cash anonymizes transactions on the network.

(The defense has distilled this information well, but I think it’s still a bit confusing to the ju-decides.

Axel stressed the fact that Tornado cash doesn’t charge a fee for services, but that was able to do so.

She added that the first tornado cash test pool was launched in the way that Baterin herself participated in the “unreliable ceremony” in May 2020.

She also said that once Tornado’s cash mixing pool is launched, Storm and his co-founder will burn the keys, leaving developers unable to control what happened within the pool.

“The government’s case is about the Romans that should stop hackers from using pools,” Axel said. “But he couldn’t do this.”

Axel concluded her opening statement by saying tornado cash was merely a tool used by both bad and good people.

First Witness

Following the conclusion of the opening statement, the prosecutor called on the first witness, Mr. Lin, to the stand.

Lynn convinced the scammer to contact her via WhatsApp, detailing another messaging app, scenario, and opening a Crypto.com account and depositing a total of more than $200,000.

The scammer walked through Lin the process of purchasing a “crypto” as Lin said, then transferred the code to a shell company called NTU Capital.

The witness was rejected before either her or the prosecutor concluded the story, but given the purpose of the trial, it may be assumed that the funds were stolen from Ms. Lynn and cannot be tracked through tornado cash. (To be clear, the second half of the previous sentence is speculation.)

Tomorrow’s schedule

The trial is scheduled to resume tomorrow at 9am.

Prosecutors informed the judge that they plan to bring at least three witnesses to the stands tomorrow.

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