Prosecutors Seek 20 Years for “Jonber Kim” in 340 Billion Won POD Token Fraud

Seoul Court Hears Sentencing Arguments

South Korean prosecutors have asked a Seoul court to sentence the digital-asset manipulator known as “Jonber Kim” to 20 years in prison for his role in a 340 billion won fraud built around the POD token, Grape Coin, and the ATT token, Artube. The request was made at the concluding hearing held on August 21 before the 13th Criminal Division of the Seoul Southern District Court, where prosecutors also asked for roughly 18.8 billion won in forfeiture from Park, the defendant behind the nickname. All four defendants, Park included, are scheduled to learn their sentences on October 15 at 3 p.m., and the prosecution's opening position sets the tone for the panel's final calculus. The 20-year figure reflects how prosecutors read the scheme: Park allegedly promoted POD-linked business ventures he had neither the intention nor the ability to operate, circulated fabricated promotional material, coordinated buying to inflate prices, and then sold into the retail demand his own campaign had manufactured. The charges describe the same structure repeated at far larger scale with ATT, where false corporate disclosures replaced hype and word-of-mouth. The nickname — a Korean play on the crypto slang for holding through drawdowns — made Park a recognizable personality in local trading circles well before any arrest. The case has become one of the most closely watched token prosecutions in South Korea, a market where listing-driven speculation, hype and FUD cycles repeatedly damaged retail buyers during the 2021–2022 bull market that carried Bitcoin to successive record highs. Grape Coin and Artube were, on the prosecution's account, less products than vehicles — tokens whose narratives could be staged, pumped and exited. A two-decade request against a promoter who never issued a prospectus signals how severely Korean authorities now view that model. Sentencing arguments have now concluded, and the panel has roughly seven weeks to weigh penalties across four defendants.

Oakwood Team and the POD Dump

The indictment separates two distinct operations. Between 2021 and 2022, Park is accused of collecting payments for businesses supposedly tied to POD while lacking both the intent and the capability to run them, spreading false promotional material and manipulating prices before strategically selling 1 billion POD tokens — misappropriating roughly 80.9 billion won. He was indicted on those fraud charges in August 2024. In March of last year he was arrested and indicted a second time over ATT, with prosecutors alleging that false disclosures and market manipulation were used to defraud victims of about 260 billion won. According to DigitalAsset, which has tracked each hearing in the case, prosecutors had already asked on August 14 for a 7-year term and a 400 million won forfeiture against Han, the chief executive of Entable Block, the company behind POD. At the August 21 session, the same 7-year request was made for another Entable Block official surnamed Park, alongside 400 million won in forfeiture, while a man surnamed Mo, accused of aiding the ATT fraud, also faces a sought term of 7 years. Park ran a price-manipulation group known as the “Oakwood Team,” named after a hotel in Seoul's Gangnam district, and was known industry-wide under his HODL-themed alias. His shift from rumor to public figure came in December 2023 through a stowaway attempt: while under investigation in the Coinone listing-bribery case, he was barred from leaving South Korea, lost an administrative challenge to the travel ban, and then allegedly tried to exit the country by boat. Convicted under the stowaway-punishment law, he received a 7-month prison term that the Supreme Court finalized in September 2024. Those records matter now because the fraud counts carry heavier exposure: 340 billion won across both tokens is the figure the panel will weigh against a man whose only finalized sentence so far runs seven months. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bitget.

October 15 Verdict Ahead

The authoritative record in this case is the docket itself: entries from the 13th Criminal Division of the Seoul Southern District Court document sentencing requests across the August 14 and August 21 hearings, with judgment fixed for October 15 at 3 p.m. The prosecution's arithmetic is stark — 20 years sought against a lead defendant tied to a 340 billion won scheme spanning POD and ATT, plus 18.8 billion won in forfeiture from him alone. In our reading, the case closes the book on Korea's 2021–2022 pump-and-dump cycle, when DeFi-branded token sales were staged for retail audiences, and tests whether Korean courts will now price large-scale token manipulation at the severity prosecutors demand.