Haru Invest collapse — what creditors were owed and recovered (2023)
A bankruptcy trustee is still identifying and realising assets. The first creditors' meeting was held in February 2025 and no distribution date has been set. Nothing has been paid to retail creditors.
Case facts
| Customers lost access | |
|---|---|
| Insolvency filed | November 20, 2024 |
| Business | Lender or yield platform |
| Jurisdiction | South Korea |
| Procedure | LiquidationSeoul Rehabilitation Court |
| Owed to creditors | $467,100,000Published estimates range $467,100,000 to $1,000,000,00016,000 creditors |
| Distributed so far | Nothing |
| Recovery | 0%No distributions yet — The estate has not paid creditors anything. |
| Cause | ContagionDeposits lost through external manager after FTX |
| Case status | Ongoing |
What happened
Haru Invest was a South Korean crypto yield platform operated by Haru Management Limited under the Blockcrafters group. It took customer deposits of Bitcoin, Ether and other assets and promised returns, routing the coins to external managers. On 13 June 2023 it abruptly suspended all withdrawals, citing a problem with a consignment operator. Delio, which had placed part of its own reserves with Haru, halted withdrawals the following day.
Figures for what was owed conflict, and they measure different things. Prosecutors alleged the executives misappropriated about 1.1 trillion won, reported at roughly US$830 million, from more than 16,000 customers between March 2020 and June 2023. Later police statements put the alleged figure at 1.4 trillion won, about US$1 billion. Haru itself has said the amount actually owed to customers is closer to 460 billion won. No audited claims total has been published.
The Seoul Rehabilitation Court declared Haru Management bankrupt on 20 November 2024, finding it unable to pay. In June 2025 the Seoul Southern District Court acquitted chief executive Lee Hyung-soo and two Blockcrafters co-chief executives of fraud, holding that the collapse followed the FTX bankruptcy and a liquidity crisis rather than deliberate deception. The chief operating officer was convicted of embezzlement. Lee was stabbed in the neck during a court appearance in August 2024 by a former depositor, who was later sentenced to five years.
The headline figure here is the roughly 460 billion won, about 467 million dollars, that chief executive Hugo Lee said was actually outstanding to customers. The larger numbers measure gross flows rather than the debt: Lee has said the 1.4 trillion won figure still counts assets that had already been returned to customers. No audited claims total has been published by the bankruptcy administrator, so the company's own figure is the best available measure of what was owed and the prosecution and police estimates set the upper bound.
Charges and enforcement
- Fraud and embezzlement against chief executive Lee Hyung-soo and two co-chief executives of parent Blockcrafters (acquitted at first instance
- Seoul Southern District Court
- June 2025)
- Embezzlement against the chief operating officer
- surnamed Kang (convicted; sentenced to two years
- acquitted of the principal fraud charge)
Sources
- CointelegraphSecondary · retrieved 2026-08-21
- The BlockSecondary · retrieved 2026-08-21
- The Asia Business DailySecondary · retrieved 2026-08-21
- crypto.newsSecondary · retrieved 2026-08-21
- TRM LabsSecondary · retrieved 2026-08-21
- Ask Korea LawSecondary · retrieved 2026-08-21
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