Law enforcement agencies of South Korea are busy confiscation 191 bitcoin cybercriminals who were involved in child porn and sentenced to imprisonment and a fine of $640 000.

A South Korean news Agency Yonhap reports that on may 30 the Supreme court of South Korea ruled cryptocurrency can be viewed as a property that has a value, and to confiscate in criminal cases. In this case, the cost of the recovery — a little more than $1.4 million at the current rate.

Earlier the lower court rejected the Prosecutor’s request for the confiscation of criminals cryptocurrency assets. Then the court reasoned its decision by the fact that crypto-currencies “exist in electronic form and have no physical form.” However, the court of appeal later concluded that the digital currency can be considered “profit derived from trading goods”.

It is unclear what the South Korean authorities will do with the seized digital assets. The new decision became an important precedent because there are many outstanding criminal cases related to cryptocurrency.

So, in December of 2017, the Incheon Prosecutor’s office filed a lawsuit against the company, Max Mining and groups of individuals in connection with fraud in the amount of $250 million with the cryptocurrency, and recently officials of the Seoul prosecutors raided the offices of several local cryptocurrency exchanges, to confirm the fraud and theft. It is not excluded that they are preparing to confiscate assets under further investigation.

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