South Korean prosecutors announced on Monday that they have arrested and detained three executives of the cryptocurrency yield platform Haru Invest, including its two co-CEOs. An official from the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor's Office said that the Seoul prosecutors charged the three with stealing cryptocurrency worth about 1.1 trillion won (approximately $826 million) from around 16,000 users. Haru is also said to have invested most of its customers' deposits through an individual, while falsely promoting the deposits as managed through "risk-free distributed investment technology." Haru Invest offers up to 12% yield for its Earn Plus product users. Local authorities have been investigating both Haru and cryptocurrency lending institution Delio since they suddenly suspended withdrawals on June 14, 2023. Delio attributed the suspension to Haru Invest's sudden stoppage of deposits and withdrawals earlier that day, and had previously worked with Haru Invest.

Hugo Lee, CEO of Haru Invest, stated that since the suspension of Haru Invest's withdrawal services, we have been working hard to reduce expenses and operate efficiently, but server maintenance still accounts for a large portion of fixed expenses. After careful consideration, Haru Invest and I believe that we need to save costs in this area, so we have informed our members of the decision to temporarily shut down the server. As a result, we plan to temporarily shut down our server on Saturday, November 4, 2023, and expect to save over $5,500 per month. Although some of our members are anxious about the announcement of the plan to suspend services, Haru Invest and I believe that this measure will definitely help protect our members' assets in the long run. This measure is aimed at restarting the server in a timely manner to allocate member assets in the future, but it is currently difficult to predict the timeline. When the server is expected to restart, I will notify you again. In addition, to prevent potential member confusion after the server restarts in the future, important member information (email accounts, asset size) is being backed up in multiple forms.

On October 24th, Haru Invest, the bankrupt South Korean digital asset management platform, announced that due to server maintenance costs being the largest fixed cost, they plan to temporarily shut down the servers in the coming weeks while saving and storing all relevant data. They will decide whether to restart the servers when allocating assets. As previously reported by BlockBeats, on September 9th, Haru Invest CEO Hugo Lee wrote to Haru Invest members stating that the assets retrieved from the asset management company will be prioritized for distribution to members, and the timing of asset distribution will depend on the investigation results of &S Holdings and Haru Invest.

Hugo Lee, CEO of Haru Invest, explained the misunderstandings and concerns regarding the cost-cutting measures announced last week. Lee stated that all cost-cutting measures related to Haru Invest's services are currently necessary, and Haru Invest and I will continue to work to implement the cost-cutting plan in the most effective way possible. Since the suspension of withdrawals, many expenses have already been reduced, but there are still some fixed costs.