Dunamu's appeal halts the 35.2 billion won Upbit penalty temporarily

Dunamu, operator of the cryptocurrency exchange Upbit, has filed an objection to a 35.2 billion won ($25.1 million USD) penalty imposed by South Korea’s financial authorities. 

South Korea’s financial authorities revealed on Monday that Dunamu recently applied to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Financial Services Commission to object to the penalty decision. As a result, the penalty’s enforcement has been temporarily put on hold pending a court review.

Dunamu receives record fine, faces business suspension

The FIU decided to impose a 35.2 billion won fine on Dunamu in November of last year. The agency claimed to have discovered that the company had breached the Act on Reporting and Use of Specified Financial Transaction Information (the “Specified Financial Information Act”). Separately from the fine, Dunamu has also received a business suspension order for violating the Specified Financial Information Act.

The 35.2 billion won fine marked the largest ever imposed by financial authorities for violating the Specific Financial Information Act. 

The agency accused Dunamu of violating customer verification obligations in 5.3 million cases, including accepting scanned or printed copies of identification documents instead of originals and rendering names or resident registration numbers unidentifiable. It also charged Dunamu with approving registrations even when customers uploaded identification documents online that were out of focus.

Financial authorities explained that approximately 3.3 million cases involved transactions for customers whose verification processes had not been completed. 

The authorities also found 15 cases where Dunamu failed to fulfill its obligation to report when there were reasonable grounds to suspect money laundering. This includes instances in which prosecutors sought search-and-seizure orders for the transaction records of Upbit users suspected of criminal activity. Dunamu did not submit the needed reports, despite being aware of this.

At a hearing held in December last year, Dunamu’s legal representative argued, “Even though other exchanges faced the same issues, only Dunamu was subjected to preemptive action,” pointing to a lack of fairness.

Dunamu also argued at the hearing that a violation of Article 8 of the Specified Financial Information Act may result in a fine regardless of deliberate or egregious negligence. The business also asserted that it is a major issue to issue a business suspension order based solely on a single Article 8 infraction.

FIU fines Bithumb, Korbit for AML violations

After FIU imposed a fine on Dunamu in November of last year, it also stated in a separate statement that it had inspected four additional cryptocurrency exchanges, including Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and GOPAX, to evaluate their AML and other regulatory compliance.

FIU inspected Bithumb in March 2025. Last month, CCN reported that FIU fined Bithumb for anti-money laundering (AML) violations. The report noted that the FIU examination found numerous compliance issues at Bithumb, including violations of AML procedures, insufficient know-your-customer (KYC) procedures, and failures to report suspicious transactions.

According to industry reports, widespread AML errors akin to those at Upbit have been identified, even if the precise fine amount has not yet been officially announced as of February 2026.

The report stated that Bithumb is expected to pay a large fine, which is predicted to equal or exceed Upbit’s $25 million fine.

The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU)  issued an institutional warning and fined South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Korbit 2.73 billion won ($1.9 million) on December 31, 2025, for numerous violations of anti-money laundering (AML) laws.

The FIU imposed disciplinary measures against the exchange’s top compliance staff, in addition to the monetary fine, including issuing a warning to the CEO and reprimanding the AML officer.

The penalties followed regulators’ findings of serious flaws in Korbit’s AML compliance system, the result of a thorough on-site investigation conducted between October 16 and October 29, 2024. According to the FIU’s investigation, Korbit had violated almost 22,000 rules about transaction limitations and customer due diligence.

Cryptopolitan reported that regulators also identified 19 improperly reported virtual asset transactions involving three foreign virtual asset service providers (VASPs). The report noted that Korea’s regulations governing the management of unregistered foreign corporations were broken in this case.

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