South Korean police tracked Polymarket users through on-chain records and filed cases against 26 individuals on suspicion of gambling.

BlockBeats news, September 19 — South Korean police spent five months identifying individual traders on Polymarket through public blockchain transaction records and filed cases on gambling-related charges. The cyber investigation unit of the Gangwon Provincial Police Agency launched an investigation in March and began filing cases in May, while the Korea Communications Standards Commission did not order Polymarket to be blocked until August 18. As of September 15, police had filed cases against 26 individuals, of whom 18 were referred to prosecutors, with the total amount involved reaching $12.7 million, and the single largest trader having invested $4.1 million. South Korean police stated that because Polymarket operates as a non-custodial peer-to-peer market and does not hold a real-name list of South Korean users, obtaining a user list from the operator is unrealistic, but on-chain transaction records are publicly accessible, so they identified and tracked users themselves through open-source intelligence analysis.