One of South Korea’s top crypto exchanges, Bithumb, received a preliminary notice from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of a six-month partial business suspension over breaches of anti-money laundering regulations, local media reported Monday.
The FIU also notified the company of disciplinary action against its chief executive officer.
The notice flagged the exchange’s handling of unreported overseas virtual asset operators and insufficient KYC procedures.
The action against Bithumb follows a systematic enforcement campaign by South Korean financial regulators targeting compliance failures across the domestic crypto industry.
In 2025, the FIU imposed a three-month partial business suspension on Dunamu, the operator of market leader Upbit, alongside a fine of 35 billion won (approximately $25M) for similar infractions involving anti-money laundering protocols and customer due diligence.
Korbit, another major domestic exchange, received a fine of 2.7 billion won and an institutional warning earlier in 2026 for comparable violations. The FIU has signaled that sanction deliberations for Coinone and Gopax will proceed sequentially as part of ongoing compliance reviews across the sector.
Similar to prior sanctions on Dunamu and Korbit, the restriction would apply only to transactions by new members. Existing users would retain full access to Korean won deposits and withdrawals, as well as virtual asset trading capabilities.
Financial authorities will convene a sanctions review committee to finalize the penalty levels, and Bithumb confirmed that adjustments may occur during the process.
The sanctions come at a sensitive time for Bithumb, which recently suffered a system error that mistakenly credited users with Bitcoin. About 620,000 BTC was briefly distributed to 695 users before the exchange froze transactions and recovered 99.7% of the funds, later announcing compensation and new safeguards.
Source: https://cryptobriefing.com/bithumb-suspension-aml-violations-fiu/
