South Korea’s Coinone crypto exchange faces a hefty fine for breaching the national anti-money laundering (AML) laws. The country’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) collectively took the decision and have also imposed a three-month sanction against the exchange.
As per reports, the FIU conducted an on-site AML inspection to check Coinone’s practices. During the course of the investigation, the FIU found multiple breaches of the Act on Reporting and Use of Specific Financial Information.
The exchange was reportedly found allowing crypto transactions without running proper ID verifications. Records of more than 70,000 such cases emerged during FIU’s probe. The findings also reportedly showed over 10,000 transactions processed to 16 unregistered foreign exchanges among other lapses.
Now, Coinone’s business suspension would go into effect on April 29 and culminate on July 28.
During the period of suspension, the exchange will be restricting external withdrawals and deposits of crypto assets for new customers. For older ones, meanwhile, the trading services will continue as is.
The exchange has been granted a window of ten days to contest the decisions. As per Crypto Times, Coinone could file a lawsuit against the decision.
The exchange does, however, plan to take compliance requirements seriously going forward.
The move comes in the thick of South Korea tightening its oversight over its crypto ecosystem to curb the instances of these digital assets being exploited for criminal purposes, contaminating the overall sector.
Similar regulatory measures have been initiated against other crypto majors in the country recently, including Upbit and Bithumb.
After Upbit was hacked for over $30 million in November 2025, South Korean regulators imposed a partial business suspension and a hefty fine citing violations of the national AML guidelines. After Upbit took the matters to the court, the decision was ruled in their favour citing that while there are precise guidelines for dealing with cryptocurrency transactions beyond one million won ($675), but there were no guidelines for transactions below this amount, rendering the punishment ambiguous.
In March this year, Bithumb was slapped with a $24 million fine for being in violation with the national anti-money laundering regulations. Bithumb has been given a six month temporary service suspension sanction as well.