South Korea Charges CATFI Memecoin Team in First DEX Rug-Pull Case: Report

A group was reportedly charged by South Korean prosecutors over the CATFI memecoin rug pull, marking the country’s first decentralized exchange rug-pull case under crypto law.

A group was charged by South Korean prosecutors over an alleged rug pull involving the Catpie memecoin, also known as CATFI, in what local media described as the country’s first decentralized exchange rug-pull prosecution.

The group was reportedly apprehended by the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office’s Virtual Asset Crime Joint Investigation Division. The main suspect, identified by the surname Park, allegedly used the alias “Eth Father” on social media platforms and falsely promoted Catpie as an independent third-party project before a rug pull was carried out, causing around 900 million won ($599,000) in losses to at least 256 investors, local news outlet Digital Asset Works reported on Wednesday.

Prosecutors allege the group promoted Catpie across social media, pushing the token’s price up more than 1,000 times within 26 hours before their holdings were sold for roughly 400 million won ($260,000) in illegal profits.

The move marks South Korea’s first arrest connected to a memecoin rug pull under the Virtual Asset User Protection Act and signals that stronger action is being taken by authorities against coordinated crypto price manipulation.

Rug pulls are deceptive exit scams in which token deployers promote a project to attract outside investment before abruptly abandoning it and selling off their holdings, resulting in major financial losses for later buyers.

The development comes amid a sharp contraction in South Korea’s domestic digital asset trading market, where trading volume on major won-based cryptocurrency exchanges was reported earlier Wednesday by Digital Asset Works to have fallen to just 8% of the KOSPI stock market’s trading volume.

CATFI Token Plunges 99% Following Alleged Rug Pull

Following its initial surge to an $8.99 million market capitalization in February 2025, the Catpie token has since collapsed by 99% to a market capitalization of about $57,000 at the time of writing.

Despite the collapse, the token was still being held by 1,512 investors hoping for a recovery, while the largest holder, wallet “5Q54,” controlled 18% of the token’s total supply, according to data from Pump.fun.

The X account that had previously promoted the project has since been deleted.

Rug pulls and coordinated manipulation schemes continue to threaten the broader cryptocurrency market.

Earlier in May, a Solana memecoin linked to Keith Gill’s Roaring Kitty X account experienced a similar rug pull, as about $729,000 was cashed out by the anonymous developer while the token lost most of its value.

Nearly $190,000 was lost within an hour by one unfortunate cryptocurrency trader on the memecoin, highlighting the risks associated with memecoin trading.