South Korean prosecutors have charged a group of individuals in connection with a fraud case involving the Solana-based Catpie (CATFI) memecoin. Local media report this as the first "rug-pull" crime in the country's history executed via a decentralized exchange (DEX). This is reported by Cointelegraph.com reports.
The Joint Investigation Team for Virtual Assets at the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office identified the group's leader as an individual surnamed Park. He promoted himself as "Eth Father" on social media, falsely advertising the CATFI project as an independent third-party asset. As a result, at least 256 investors suffered losses totaling approximately 900 million KRW (599,000 USD).
According to the investigation, the group managed to inflate the token price by over 1,000 times within 26 hours, after which they sold their holdings, netting 400 million KRW (260,000 USD) in illicit profits. This marks the first arrest for memecoin fraud under South Korea's Virtual Asset User Protection Act.
Currently, the market capitalization of the CATFI token has plummeted by 99% from its peak of 8.99 million USD to 57,000 USD. Despite this, over 1,500 investors still hold the token in their wallets, hoping for a price recovery. The X social media page that promoted the project has been deleted.
This incident coincides with a period of significantly reduced trading volume in the South Korean cryptocurrency market. Reports indicate that trading volume on local exchanges accounts for only 8% of the KOSPI stock market volume. Authorities have announced they will further strengthen measures against price manipulation in the crypto market.
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