Thai Police Smash $15M Crypto Scam Ring Targeting Koreans Through Romance & Lottery Frauds
Thai authorities just ripped the lid off a sophisticated international fraud operation—turns out romance and lottery scams are the new gateway drugs to crypto crime.
The Bait-and-Switch Playbook
Police uncovered a coordinated network running three-pronged attacks: fake crypto investments, romantic entanglements that never existed, and guaranteed lottery wins that were anything but. All roads led to digital asset theft.
Following the Digital Trail
Investigators tracked $15 million in fraudulent transactions flowing through cryptocurrency wallets—the modern equivalent of chasing numbered bank accounts across borders. The scheme specifically targeted Korean nationals who've been early adopters of digital finance.
Regulatory Irony Strikes Again
While traditional financial institutions keep adding layers of paperwork to 'protect' investors, scammers just bypass the entire system with crypto—proving once again that bad actors innovate faster than compliance departments can regulate.
Seoul and Thai Police Arrest 33 in Cross-Border Crypto Scam Crackdown
The Seoul Metropolitan Police announced the arrest of 25 suspects connected to the group, while Thai police apprehended the ringleader and eight Core members.
All nine are currently in custody in Thailand and awaiting extradition to South Korea.
Unlike previous fraud operations that typically used a single method, Lungo Company employed a wide range of tactics.
Victims were tricked into sending funds via fake compensation offers for data breaches, romance scams, or by being led to invest in worthless cryptocurrencies through fraudulent platforms.
“This group used multiple tactics in a systematic way,” a police official said. “It wasn’t a one-dimensional scam—it was structured and layered.”
The group’s laundering playbook also likely included prepaid cards, casino cash-outs, and splitting transactions into micro-amounts to evade detection systems.
For final liquidation, they relied on high-volume OTC brokers across Southeast Asia, coordinated through encrypted apps like Telegram and WeChat.
The case comes weeks after Seoul police dismantled another international cybercrime ring that stole $28.1 million from South Korean elites, including celebrities and executives, by hacking into financial and crypto accounts.
$3.5B LuBian Hack Revealed as Largest Bitcoin Heist Ever Confirmed
A previously undisclosed hack from December 2020 has now been confirmed as the largest crypto theft ever, with 127,426 BTC, worth $3.5 billion then and nearly $14.5 billion today, stolen from Chinese mining pool LuBian.
The breach, uncovered by Arkham Intelligence, exploited weaknesses in LuBian’s private key generation system.
BREAKING: ARKHAM UNCOVERS $3.5B HEIST – THE LARGEST EVER
LuBian was a Chinese mining pool with facilities in China & Iran. Based on analysis of on-chain data, it appears that 127,426 BTC was stolen from LuBian in December 2020, worth $3.5 billion at the time and now worth… pic.twitter.com/PnIOKgMt0i
LuBian had emerged rapidly in 2020 as one of the top Bitcoin mining pools, branding itself as a safe and high-yield platform.
By early 2021, the pool vanished without explanation, leading to speculation of regulatory shutdown or privatization. Arkham’s findings point to a dramatic hack as the cause.
The majority of LuBian’s BTC, over 90%, was drained in a single day, followed by additional losses the next day via bitcoin and USDT transfers on the Omni layer.
The stolen coins have remained dormant since July 2024. LuBian attempted to contact the thief via Bitcoin’s OP_RETURN function, offering a reward.
While Mt. Gox’s collapse involved more BTC in total, the LuBian incident marks the largest confirmed crypto heist in terms of value at the time it occurred. The attacker’s identity remains unknown, and the stolen assets have yet to surface.
