South Korea’s first prosecution for a DEX rug pull under the Virtual Asset User Protection Act involves the CATFI project.

According to Mars Finance, citing Crypto.news, the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office’s Virtual Asset Crime Joint Investigation Unit arrested and indicted two main suspects in connection with the Solana meme coin CATFI on suspicion of market manipulation, while a third individual was indicted without detention. Two others were also charged for aiding the main suspects in fleeing. This marks the first time in South Korea that arrests and indictments have been made under the Virtual Asset User Protection Act targeting a “rug pull” scam on a decentralized exchange (DEX). Prosecutors stated that the main suspect, Park, impersonated the influencer “Eth Father” on X, recommending investors to buy CATFI under the guise of an unrelated third party, while simultaneously managing the project’s social media accounts, inflating follower counts, and disseminating false positive news. The group also distributed CATFI across multiple wallets and used circular trading to conceal the fact that the issuers controlled the tokens. Within 26 hours of its launch, CATFI’s price surged 1,001-fold, prompting approximately 6,000 investors to purchase it; subsequently, 256 investors suffered losses totaling around 90 million KRW (approximately $586,000). The criminal group used roughly 10 million KRW in capital to generate profits of approximately 4 billion KRW (about $260,000).