Bithumb Probe: The Vident Executive Found Dead in Seoul

Early on the morning of 30 December 2022, a vice president of Vident, a Korean listed company that was the largest shareholder in the crypto exchange Bithumb, was found dead outside the apartment building where he lived in Dongjak district, southern Seoul. He handled accounting for the group. He was under investigation by prosecutors looking into alleged embezzlement and stock price manipulation at Bithumb-linked companies. Police said they were treating the death as a suicide and that their examination of the scene pointed to no other explanation.

His full name was never published. Korean media identified him as "Park Mo", the standard Korean press convention for withholding a name: it means, roughly, "a Mr. Park". English-language crypto sites printed it as if it were his name, and that is how the story has been known outside Korea ever since.

The companies and the money

Bithumb is one of South Korea's two biggest crypto exchanges, alongside Upbit, the local equivalent of a large online broker where millions of Koreans buy and sell digital coins. Unlike a listed broker, its ownership ran through a chain of smaller companies listed on KOSDAQ, Korea's market for growth stocks. Vident held about 34% of Bithumb Holdings, the exchange's parent, making it the single largest shareholder. Vident in turn was controlled by Inbiogen, a kiosk maker, which was controlled by Bucket Studio. Kang Ji-yeon ran Inbiogen and Bucket Studio. Her older brother, Kang Jong-hyun, was widely described in the Korean press as Bithumb's real owner.

On 7 October 2022 the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office raided Vident, Inbiogen and Bucket Studio. Prosecutors suspected the group had issued convertible bonds, a kind of loan that can be swapped for shares, then spread favourable news to push up the share price and profit from the conversion. They also suspected company money had been siphoned off. Park, as the executive in charge of the books, was one of the people under investigation. Prosecutors had not charged him, and he was never convicted of anything. Under Korean law, the case against him ended with his death.

After his death

Five weeks later, in early February 2023, Kang Jong-hyun was arrested. Prosecutors accused him of manipulating share prices with a business partner and embezzling tens of billions of won. His sister said most of the suspicions against him were one-sided claims made without checking the facts. In March 2023 trading in Vident and Bucket Studio shares was suspended. Their auditors later refused to sign off their accounts, one of the grounds for removal from the stock market.

The trial took years. On 18 September 2026, at the closing hearing before Criminal Panel 12 of the Seoul Southern District Court, prosecutors asked for 20 years in prison for Kang Jong-hyun, a fine of 150 billion won and forfeiture of 18.1 billion won. They accused him of embezzling 62.8 billion won (about $45 million) from group companies between 2020 and September 2022, making 35 billion won from the 2021 bond scheme, handing over a bond call option at a low price to the company's cost, and, before the 2022 raids, ordering staff to destroy evidence and helping an employee who managed borrowed-name accounts to flee. Prosecutors called him the main offender and said he denied the key crimes.

Five others were tried with him. Prosecutors sought 15 years for Won Young-sik, former chairman of the Chorokbaem media group; seven years for Kang Ji-yeon; six years for the head of an unlisted Bithumb affiliate; and five years each for an accounting official who worked under Kang's direction and another employee. Kang's lawyers denied all charges, arguing that there was no intent to cause loss or gain illegally and that the prosecution had miscalculated the losses. As of mid-October 2026 no verdict had been reported. All six are presumed innocent until the court rules.

Vident's shares have not traded since March 2023. In June 2026 the KOSDAQ market committee voted to delist the company; Vident appealed, replaced its management and is trying to sell control of the business to cut its ties to Kang. No final outcome had been reported by mid-October 2026.

The wider picture

The case is separate from Bithumb's other courtroom saga. Lee Jung-hoon, the exchange's former chairman, was acquitted in January 2023 of defrauding a would-be buyer of the company, and the Seoul High Court upheld that acquittal in January 2024. Bithumb itself continued to operate throughout.

The death came at a bleak moment for the industry. FTX had collapsed seven weeks earlier, and Korean investors were still counting the cost of Terra, the Korean-founded stablecoin project that had failed in May. But the Vident investigation had nothing to do with either. It was an old-fashioned case about listed companies, convertible bonds and money that prosecutors say went missing, run through a crypto exchange.

What is known about Park is very little: his surname, his job, the investigation he was part of, and that the police treated his death as a suicide. His family made no public statement. The people prosecutors accuse of running the scheme he kept the books for are still waiting for a verdict.

If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 (US). Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741. International Association for Suicide Prevention: https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/