Dormant KOK Fraud Wallets Move 2,602 Ethereum (ETH), Lee Kang-il Tells Assembly Audit

2,602 ETH Ends a 57-Month Sleep

Some 2,602 Ethereum (ETH) moved from suspect wallets tied to the KOK token fraud this week, ending four years and nine months of total inactivity on the chain. On-chain analysis presented at South Korea's National Assembly audit of the Financial Services Commission on Thursday shows the coins left in mid-September, passed through intermediary wallets and bridge services, and were converted into Bitcoin (BTC). Control of the wallets' private keys has not been attributed, and whether the moved funds count as criminal proceeds remains unconfirmed. The disclosure tracks wallet flows rather than Ethereum price activity.

The KOK case ranks among the largest digital-asset frauds recorded in South Korea. Estimated losses stand at about 2.5759 trillion won across roughly 570,000 victims. KOK Play positioned itself as a digital-asset platform: members deposited funds for promised yields and earned extra compensation for bringing in new members, a structure auditors treat as suspected multilevel fraud. The yield pitch borrowed the shape of staking rewards, yet unlike returns a verifiable smart contract could prove on-chain, the payouts depended entirely on incoming deposits. Lawmaker Lee Kang-il of the Democratic Party, who presented the material, told the committee that more than 100 billion won had already flowed from KOK suspect wallets to domestic and foreign exchanges by the end of 2021. He argued the wallet behind the 2,602 Ethereum (ETH) transfer very likely belongs to the scheme's main perpetrator. On the Ethereum network record, the September move went out in stages, and no final destination has been publicly confirmed.

Bank Alliances That Built Investor Trust

Lee pressed the committee to treat KOK as more than a routine coin multilevel scheme, because its recruitment machine leaned on partnerships that carried official weight. In April 2021, the Hong Kong-based Medium Foundation announced an acquisition of KOK Play, and the domestic business ran under the Korean company Medium. In July of the same year, Medium was selected as the execution agency for the Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation's blockchain business. The following year, the company signed a business alliance with Busan Bank and concluded a memorandum of understanding with the Busan city government on blockchain investment attraction. A bank partnership or a local-government MOU of that kind, Lee argued, left investors with little choice but to trust the platform.

Fresh suspicions extend the record. Recent tips, Lee said, indicate that people linked to KOK have founded a new blockchain company and are pursuing business with a large bank and a financial holding group; he asked regulators to establish the facts, and the venture's substance and the founders' roles remain unverified. FSC Chairman Lee Eok-won answered that the FIU's core function is analyzing money laundering-related information and supporting the agencies that investigate actual crimes, and pledged to work toward firmer linkage between supervision, analysis and enforcement. The lawmaker pointed to the US Treasury's FinCEN and Japan's JAFIC as reference models. He also noted that the Specific Financial Information Act, in force since March 2021, brought virtual asset service providers under anti-money laundering discipline, but funds that hop across multiple corporations, personal wallets and exchanges still strain a system built around individual reporting entities.

What the On-Chain Trail Cannot Settle

Our reading of the record: a 57-month dormancy followed by a staged move through relays and bridges fits pre-cash-out behavior, and the cross-chain conversion lands exactly where the March 2021 reporting framework is weakest. ETH-denominated trails of this kind have stayed open for years before resolution, as the 200 ETH drained from a Maker keeper and the 812 ETH laundering trail behind the Uranium Finance conviction both show. Unattributed key control also sits close to warnings on AI-era key security from Ethereum (ETH) researchers. Yet the headline number measures movement, not proven laundering: the owner is unidentified, the criminal-proceeds question is open, and until investigators close either gap, the 2,602 ETH remains a flag on the chain rather than a completed case.