A new Korean Exchange, Pure Bit has pulled an exit scam and stole over 13k Ethereum from its investors. The exchange promised Pure Coin tokens to investors who sent Ethereum to the scammer’s address. The scam exchange used fake names and contacts in all of their social channels.

The team’s whereabouts are unknown. The exchange website and all of their social channels were shut down by the team. They left very little trace to track them.

The Ethereum address of Pure Bit shows 479 transactions and most of which were Ether transfers by investors. Link to the address: https://etherscan.io/txs?a=0x7DF1BD58e8Fd49803E43987787adFecB4A0A086C&p=4

The wallet moved all the funds out of this address with two transfers. The first transfer moved 500 Ether and the second transfer moved all of the remaining funds. The account still has a balance of 0.802362412347690686 Ether.

The South Korean government banned ICOs in September 2017 after ICOs became a popular method of raising money for new blockchain based startups. This exchange scam was raising money illegally. The last few moments of it was captured by a [reddit thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/9viwip/another_day_another_30m_ico_scam_in_korea/):

>Project: Pure Coin / Exchange token that pays dividends

>Website: https://pure-bit.com/

<text>
>Wallet: https://etherscan.io/txs?a=0x7DF1BD58e8Fd49803E43987787adFecB4A0A086C
>When: 2018/11/09 at 5PM (KST) (Less than an hour before this reddit post)
Right after the ICO was finished, the community admin kicked everyone out, took its website down, and moved ETH to a private wallet.

<text>
>\”감사합니다\” Means \”Thank You\” in Korean
>1:1 Support for PUREBIT \”죄송합니다\” Means \”Sorry\” in Korean

<text>
Though the scam was perfectly executed, those involved in the scam will likely face legal troubles and South Korean authorities will go after them.

Even if no scammed investor files a court case against them, they would still face legal action since everything they did was illegal including the fundraising. Since their private Ethereum address where the stolen Ether is stored is public, the authorities might be able to catch them by watching where the funds go.