The top executives of a fraudulent South Korean cryptocurrency exchange totaling $1.5 billion have been imprisoned.

With the CEO already serving a 22-year sentence, this latest legal action brings the total number of V Global executives behind bars to seven.

Three of the six executives involved in the $1.5 billion (2 trillion won) V Global crypto exchange fraud in South Korea were not detained so they could fight certain charges in court and received sentences of up to eight years in prison.

Between July 2020 and April 2021, V Global was in business and attracted around 50,000 investors with the promise of 300% returns and large payments for referring new customers.

Two high-ranking executives, identified only as Mr.Yang and Mr.Oh, were sentenced to eight and three years in prison, respectively, for their roles in defrauding investors, according to a translation of reports from South Korean media outlets such as Economist.co.kr on December 26.

Four other unidentified executives were also given three-year prison terms and five-year probation terms.

However, three of the total six have not yet been detained because they are asserting their right to a trial and a presumption of innocence.

Defendants "only trusted the VGlobal management team, evaded responsibility, and once the investigation began, they destroyed evidence and interfered with the investigation," according to the judge from the 12th Criminal Division of the Suwon District Court.

The judge reportedly showed some leniency toward the defendants, however, because the amount of fraud and the number of affected investors turned out to be less than originally estimated.

After further investigation, Kyeongin reported in February that around 10,000 investors had earned returns from V Global through payments from multilevel marketing incentives like customer recruitment bonuses. It is speculated that many users re-invested their earnings into the platform shortly before its closure.

Customer referral bonuses, rumored to be $1,000 each, were allegedly distributed to existing investors in a Ponzi-like fashion by the company in June of last year.

Since V Global's CEO, identified only as "Mr. Lee," was given a 22-year prison term in February, this latest legal action brings the total number of V Global executives currently behind bars to seven.