South Korea Police Investigate Crypto Transfers by Lawmaker

South Korean officials are looking into suspicious cryptocurrency transactions made by Rep. Kim Nam-kuk of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK). Reports say South Korea’s financial watchdog has told local officials about the matter. Also, people in the United States are upset about possible conflicts of interest.

Allegedly, Kim sold his shares before South Korea’s crypto travel law went into effect in March 2022. On the other hand, Kim said that the claims were false and that most of his cryptocurrency assets had not been sold out but moved to another exchange. He also said he didn’t have to tell anyone about his interests because the current public service ethics act says he doesn’t have to.

The exchange told the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) about the strange transaction. The case was then sent to the prosecutors by the FIU. The police are looking into what happened right now.

South Korea Investigates Lawmaker for Crypto Trades

Kim is said to have taken out 800,000 WEMIX crypto tokens between the end of February and the beginning of March 2022. CoinDesk Korea says that the Financial Services Commission’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) got a report about the trades. Between January and February of 2022, Kim’s WEMIX investments were worth $4.5 million, or 6 billion won.

Last year, WEMIX was taken off the major exchanges in the country because it was said to have given false information about supply and traffic. WeMade, the company that made WEMIX coins, went to court to stop the token from being taken away, but they lost.

South Korea enacted the FATF travel rule on March 25, 2022. This was only a short time after Kim was said to have sold his holdings. The travel rule says that exchanges must keep track of personal information about transactions and tell the government when the number of transactions reaches a certain amount.

Kim is also criticized because she plans to introduce a bill in 2021 to delay paying taxes on crypto gains. Kim and a few other opposition party members brought the plan forward.