The Seoul metropolitan government said Friday it has seized the cryptocurrencies of hundreds of top tax delinquents who hid their assets in digital form, becoming the country's first local government to do so. The city government said its tax collection department found the cryptocurrencies of 1,566 individuals and heads of companies in three cryptocurrency exchanges and seized more than 25 billion won ($22 million) in virtual assets from 676 of them. These 676 owed the government 28.4 billion

South Korea's financial authorities are moving to impose an income tax on cryptocurrency trading from next year, but investors in digital tokens have raised a nagging question about the proposed taxation. A growing number of cryptocurrency investors have cried foul over whether the government will collect a tax on virtual currencies while top policymakers see no intrinsic value in crypto assets amid a lack of regulations to protect cryptocurrency investors. Like many governments around the wo

South Korea and eight Central American countries have adopted a joint statement expressing "deep concerns" over a massive discharge of contaminated materials into the ocean, calling for a collective response for marine safety, the foreign ministry said Friday. The statement was adopted at the vice-ministerial consultative dialogue between South Korea and the members of the Central American Integration System, or SICA in Spanish, that was held in Costa Rica on Thursday (local time).