South Korea Sentences Meme Coin Rug Pull Mastermind Park to 4 Years; 6,000 Investors Defrauded

According to Edaily, on July 23, Seoul Southern District Court sentenced Park, the mastermind of a Meme coin rug pull scheme, to 4 years imprisonment under South Korea's Virtual Asset User Protection Act. The scheme involved issuing a Meme coin via Pump.fun and spreading false "lockup" claims on social media, which inflated the token's price approximately 1,001 times within 26 hours and attracted around 6,000 investors.

The conspiracy yielded illegal gains of approximately 4 billion Korean won with an initial investment of roughly 10 million Korean won. Two co-conspirators received sentences of 2.5 years and 3 years with 5-year probation, respectively.