CEO of Haru Invest stabbed to death during his trial in a Korean courtroom

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

The attacker is a 51-year-old man named Kang, who is allegedly a Haru investor and lost money after the company froze withdrawals in June 2023.

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

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

Lee was arrested in February and charged with fraud under the Act on the Enhanced Punishment of Certain Economic Crimes; he was released on bail last month.

Over 13 billion dollars in losses

The promise of fixed profits, based on investors' ignorance about cryptocurrencies, caused billions of dollars in losses worldwide.

OneCoin is alleged to have defrauded investors of $5.8 billion after convincing them that the company's token was the “Bitcoin killer.” The scheme ran under a multi-level marketing structure and rewarded new member sign-ups with cash and OneCoin tokens.

Bitconnect is another notorious Ponzi scheme that used crypto-related buzzwords to lure unsuspecting investors. The scheme promised monthly returns of 40% by locking up Bitconnect's BCC token and disappeared with $3.5 billion from investors.

The most recent of the three largest Ponzi schemes in the crypto space is PlusToken, a scheme that aims to lure Chinese, Korean and Japanese investors with the opportunity to earn 10 to 30 percent monthly. After attracting over 3 million investors, PlusToken shut down in 2019 and fled with $3 billion.

Authorities managed to arrest most of the people associated with PlusToken and seized $4 billion worth of cryptocurrencies due to price fluctuations.

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