South Korean law enforcement has arrested 23 people accused of laundering approximately $11.1 million worth of illegal funds using the stablecoin USDT. The operation, which allegedly ran from February 2024 to April 2025, involved purchasing Tether and trading it across crypto exchanges to obscure the origins of the money.

The sum, equivalent to roughly 15 billion Korean won, makes this one of the more notable crypto-related enforcement actions in South Korea this year. At least 14 of the arrested individuals have been identified as South Korean nationals.

How the scheme allegedly worked

Illicit funds, reportedly tied to phishing operations, were converted into USDT, then shuffled through exchange accounts to make the money trail harder to follow.

USDT’s characteristics make it particularly attractive for this kind of activity. It settles quickly, costs almost nothing to transfer, and trades with deep liquidity across virtually every major exchange globally. On networks like TRON, where a large share of Tether transactions occur, sending six or seven figures worth of stablecoins takes seconds and costs pennies.

The specific exchanges and blockchain networks involved in this particular case have not been publicly disclosed by South Korean authorities.

South Korea ramps up crypto enforcement

The South Korean National Police Agency has been building institutional capacity specifically for this problem. A dedicated task force was established to target operations related to USDT and similar stablecoins, signaling that authorities view the misuse of dollar-pegged tokens as a systemic risk rather than a one-off nuisance.

The scale of the problem extends well beyond this $11.1 million case. A separate, larger operation resulted in 149 arrests tied to a USDT-focused laundering ring involving approximately 110 billion KRW, or roughly $80 million.

Reports also indicate that some of the laundering activity traced back to operations based in Cambodia, suggesting cross-border coordination between criminal networks using stablecoins as the connective tissue between different jurisdictions.

South Korea implemented the Virtual Asset Users Protection Act in 2024, which imposed stricter requirements on exchanges operating domestically.