When Kim Min-hye, an official at the Busan Regional Customs' foreign exchange investigation team, was assigned to investigate a suspected illegal foreign exchange scheme involving cryptocurrency, she had little experience with digital assets. "The term stablecoin itself was unfamiliar to me, and I had never personally traded cryptocurrency. Understanding how cryptocurrency transactions worked was quite a challenge," Kim told The Korea Times in a written interview, Tuesday. Yet that challenge ultimately led to one of this year's largest foreign exchange crime busts at the Korea Customs Service. Kim was named customs officer of the month in June after uncovering an unregistered foreign exchange business that illegally transferred about 108 billion won ($73 million) using Tether (USDT), a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin, according to the customs agency. The monthly award is presented to officers recognized for outstanding achievements in customs administration and investigations. According to Kim, the suspect received USDT from an overseas accomplice and sold it through a domestic cryptocurren