South Korean authorities target illicit crypto channels in latest directives

South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service, Korea Customs Service, the Credit Finance Association and nine major domestic credit card companies have signed an agreement to share information with each other and track overseas card usage in order to prevent criminal transactions. 

There is a special focus on the methods of dealing with dark coins, which are anonymous assets that are harder than standard cryptocurrencies to track, and as such, have become a favorite tool of crypto criminals. 

New cooperation between Korean customs and banks 

The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) and the Korea Customs Service joined forces with the Credit Finance Association and nine major domestic credit card companies to sign a Civil-Government Cooperation Business Agreement. The agreement is designed to disrupt the operations of transnational criminal organizations.

Overseas card usage will be monitored to prevent illegal currency exchange and strict new guidelines for the police to manage seized cryptocurrencies, specifically “dark coins” will be introduced. 

The Korea Customs Service and individual credit card companies had their own data that they rarely shared in real-time, allowing criminals to abuse overseas credit and check cards to withdraw funds or exchange virtual assets illegally. 

Under the new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), the Credit Finance Association will act as a central hub and close the information gap.

The new system will link overseas credit card usage history directly with immigration and exit records. 

Any large withdrawals or purchases made abroad that do not align with an individual’s travel status or history will be flagged as an abnormal transaction. This is specifically aimed at voice phishing groups who often move stolen funds through complicated international card transactions and crypto exchanges.

Cryptopolitan recently reported that Canada, the UK, and the U.S. jointly launched a program called Operation Atlantic aimed at targeting approval phishing scams. 

Why is it difficult to manage dark coins?

The National Police Agency (NPA) has finalized a draft of the first-ever guidelines for managing dark coins. Unlike Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH), dark coins or privacy tokens hide the sender, the receiver, and even the transaction amount. This has made them the preferred tool for North Korean hackers and criminals involved in cases like the Nth Room sexual exploitation scandal.

Dark coins often require dedicated software installed on a specific server or PC known as a “hot wallet” or “software wallet.” Prior to now, there were no official rules on how to handle these wallets, which meant that field investigators often had to improvise.

Weeks ago, on March 1, 2026, the National Tax Service (NTS) accidentally published a press release that included a photo of a hardware wallet with its 24-word seed phrase clearly visible. An anonymous observer quickly used the phrase to drain approximately $4.8 million (8.1 billion won) in seized tokens. Earlier in 2025, in Gwangju, 320 Bitcoins went missing from prosecutorial custody due to a phishing attack, although the funds were later recovered. 

As of March 2026, the police are holding roughly 54.5 billion won (approximately $39.5 million) in seized virtual assets. Bitcoin makes up the lion’s share at 50.7 billion won, with Ethereum trailing at 1.8 billion won. Despite the high value of these assets, the police have struggled to find a private company to manage them.

Even that is not a foolproof plan, as U.S. authorities found out in the case that subsequently led to the arrest of John “Lick” Daghita over the alleged theft of about $46 million in BTC. Cryptopolitan previously reported that Dean Daghita, the father of the suspect, owns CMDSS, a firm that helps the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) manage and dispose of seized or forfeited cryptocurrency assets.

Apparently, South Korea has not even made it that far. Three separate bidding attempts to hire a private custody (consignment) firm failed last year. Most qualified companies viewed the police’s budget of 83 million won as far too low to cover the massive risk of managing such volatile and high-security assets. 

Professor Hwang Seok-jin from Dongguk University is calling for a public custody system with a professional trustee to manage all seized digital assets in an integrated manner.

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