A cigarette mistake hands police $13M crypto scammer

A 60-year-old fugitive behind a $13 million crypto scam has been caught in South Korea — all because he tossed a cigarette on the street.

For nearly five years, he managed to stay hidden. But his run ended not with a high-stakes sting or international chase — it ended because he tossed a cigarette on a Seoul street.

From crypto scammer to street litterer

The Seoul Metropolitan Police said they stopped the man on Wednesday in Gwanak District after he discarded a cigarette butt and tried to flee. 

When questioned, he refused to show his ID. He offered money to the officers, and even pleaded, “let me go just this once,” while trying to hail a taxi. He then pretended to be on a phone call and tried to run again but was arrested on the spot. 

Officers soon realized the man, identified only as A, was more than just careless with cigarettes. Investigators later found he was the mastermind of a 17.7 billion won ($13 million) crypto scam that duped about 1,300 people between 2018 and 2019.

After the fraud, he vanished in 2020, but his run ended this week when he was handed over to the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office. He was already a wanted fugitive with arrest warrants on 10 charges, including fraud and assault.

Other crypto scammers who slipped up

This isn’t the first time a crypto scammer has been tripped up by a careless mistake. Back in 2012, James Zhong stole 50,000 bitcoins from Silk Road. That would be worth more than $5.6 billion today.

Instead of laundering it cleanly, he stored the coins in physical wallets hidden around his house. Years later, in 2019, his home was burglarized, and when he called the police to report the theft, the IRS got involved. Investigators soon traced the assets back to the Silk Road hack, and it was over for Zhong. He was arrested and, in 2023, sentenced to just one year in prison.

Another infamous case was the husband-and-wife duo Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein. They pulled off one of the biggest crypto heists in history but were brought down by sloppy mistakes.

The couple was linked to the 2016 Bitfinex hack, where 119,000 bitcoins were stolen. Instead of quietly laundering the funds, they used fake accounts and conducted transactions that left an obvious digital trail.

Morgan made things even worse. She built a bizarre alter ego called “Razzlekhan,” posting awkward rap videos and flaunting a flashy lifestyle while investigators were already circling.

By 2022, the pair was arrested in New York with access to billions in stolen bitcoin. Lichtenstein admitted to carrying out the hack, while Morgan pled guilty to money laundering. In 2024, Lichtenstein was sentenced to five years in prison, and Morgan received 18 months. Their case became one of the most bizarre busts in crypto history.

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