Thailand's SEC has filed criminal complaint against Bitkub executives accusing them of concealing $50 million in hacking losses

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand (SEC) has filed a criminal complaint against crypto exchange BitkubOnline and two former directors, Sakolkorn Sakavee and Thaweesap Rawan, accusing them of submitting false financial reports between May and October 2021. The case has been transferred to Thailand's Economic Crime Suppression Bureau (ECD) for investigation and prosecutors will decide whether to formally prosecute. The SEC said Bitkub suffered a cyber attack in May 2021, and 16 types of digital assets were stolen and losses exceeded US$50 million. Regulatory investigations revealed that Bitkub did not reflect the related losses in its daily net capital report FormDA1 from May 10 to October 30, 2021. The SEC said the executives were suspected of making false records in the company's official documents, allowing regulators to believe that the customer's assets were complete and the company had not suffered financial losses. Bitkub subsequently completed the purchase of alternative assets in late October 2021, but the SEC believed that the interim report constituted a false statement. Bitkub said in a statement on July 23 that existing client positions are safe and the accounts are complete. Bitkub said its co-founder purchased alternative assets in the same amount and currency to bear the losses, and said the cyber theft incident was reported to law enforcement on May 10, 2021.