Kenne Michael 
Coinone Executives Allegedly Received Bribes to List 46 Tokens
Throughout the Coinone listing procedure, the Financial Investigation Division 1 of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor’s Office investigated cooperation and misconduct between exchange officials and brokers.
Ex-Coinone Chief Sales Officer (CGO) Jeon Mo-ssi was investigated three times in March and April, along with listing team leader Kim, broker aunt, and Hwang. In exchange for coin listing, Coinone executives and employees received a total of 2.98 billion won from brokers, including approximately 1.94 billion won for Chun and around 1 billion won for Kim.
Mr. Kim received 150 million won in bank account transfers and cash purchasing bags from Mr. Koh between December 2019 and March 2021 and 460 million won in payments between April 2020 and May 2021.
Hwang received 430 million won worth of Tether in his digital wallet eight times between February 2021 and April of the previous year. Between December 2020 and February 2021, the foundation’s pre-issued amount of approximately 40 million won, which enabled the listing, was redirected to his father’s electronic wallet.
Throughout this procedure, executives and employees of Coinone sought to float a new currency and execute a market maker (MM) contract with a specific MM company via brokers.
It was intended to prevent transaction costs from falling due to a lack of trading activity after introducing new coins; however, these companies were illegal MM firms that manipulated trading volume and prices via cross-trading.
However, when negotiating the MM contract, Jeon informed Coinone’s CEO, Cha Myung-hun, that the deposit would be reduced if the listing application foundation signed a contract with a liquidity supply (LP) provider. It adds liquidity providers and exempts the foundation that contracts with these firms from the listing deposit, so there is no cause for concern.
The prosecution is investigating the Coin Foundation that Jeon established for MM businesses such as Pika using fraud charges. In this case, the MM conduct was also called “illegal market manipulation.”
According to an indictment obtained through Rep. Cho Su-jin, a member of the National Assembly Law and Judiciary Committee, Mr Jeon and Mr Kim, who were responsible for listing Coinone were Mr Ko, who had been functioning as a broker since the second half of 2019. Mr. Hwang, a self-proclaimed ‘agent,’ assisted Mr. Kim in analyzing the foundation of the listing application and conducting due diligence.
Koh gave Jeon 220 million won in Tether (USDT) and Bitcoin thirteen times between March and November 2020 and 120 million won in currency twelve times between April and November 2020. Obtainable in the purchasing bag. On sixteen occasions in 2017, Hwang acquired Tether worth 330 million won and Ripple (XRP) tokens worth 1.27 billion won.
“There has not yet been a case in which illegal MM activities in the coin market have been prosecuted for fraud against ordinary investors,” a prosecution official stated.
In the indictment, the prosecution categorized MM activities involving cross-trading as illegal market manipulation and identified as fundamental facts listing on the virtual asset exchange, regular liquidity supply (LP), and price manipulation by coin MM operators.