TechFlow News, May 27: The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office’s Joint Investigation Team for Virtual Asset Crimes has filed detention-based indictments against two individuals and non-detention indictments against three others in connection with the CATFI Solana meme coin rug pull on a decentralized exchange (DEX). According to prosecutors, this is the first case applying the “unfair trading” provisions of South Korea’s Virtual Asset User Protection Act—and the first instance in which the masterminds behind a DEX rug pull have been subjected to detention-based indictment.
According to reports, the suspects launched CATFI in early 2025 and engaged in fraudulent activities—including disseminating false positive news via social media platforms, impersonating third-party coin recommenders, manipulating follower metrics, and executing circular trades across multiple wallets—to dump tokens and illicitly profit approximately 400 million KRW. Within 26 hours of CATFI’s launch, its price surged 1,001-fold; approximately 256 investors collectively incurred losses totaling around 900 million KRW.
