Bithumb ups fight against crypto money laundering

Bithumb announced that it will open a money laundering prevention center, a first among cryptocurrency exchanges in Korea.

The company announced Friday that the new center will be up and running in July.

The money laundering prevention center will have an independent team made of 30 or so people including some working groups. The team will be independent to further raise its accountability.

The job of the fraud prevention center will be reinforcing “know your customer” (KYC) verifications and setting up and strengthening not only suspicious transaction reports (STR) but also fraud detection systems (FDS). The center will also be responsible for solving any fraud-related accidents as well as mediating conflicts.

“As a leading cryptocurrency exchange, we have decided to open up a money laundering prevention center to not only set a standard for the industry but also to preemptively act on strengthening the money laundering prevention trend around the world,” said a Bithumb official.

“We plan to work on creating a transparent and sound exchange environment.”

Bithumb said the center is an upgrade from its existing fraud prevention efforts.

The company said the customers’ Bithumb exchange accounts connected to banks under real names are regularly checked by the authorities under the cryptocurrency guideline on preventing money laundering.

It also said it has been running its own FDS using big data that reviews any suspicious transactions.

Bithumb said it has set up a hotline with other major Korean cryptocurrency exchanges in Korea.

BY LEE HO-JEONG [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]