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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s government said it plans to end its waning foreign adoptions of Korean children, while United Nations investigators voiced “serious concern” over what they described as Seoul’s failure to ensure truth-finding and reparations for widespread human rights violations tied to decades of mass overseas adoptions.

The announcement Friday came hours after the United Nations human rights office released South Korea’s response to investigators urging Seoul to spell out concrete plans to address the grievances of adoptees sent abroad with falsified records or abused by foreign parents.

The issue had rarely been discussed at the U.N. level, even as South Korea faces growing pressure to confront widespread fraud and abuse that plagued its adoption program, particularly during a boom in the 1970s and 1980s when it annually sent thousands of children to the West.

The country will phase out foreign adoptions over a five-year period, aiming to reach zero by 2029 at the latest as it tightens welfare policies for children in need of care, Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Lee Seuran said during a briefing.

South Korea approved foreign adoptions of 24 children in 2025, down from around 2,000 in 2005 and an annual average of more than 6,000 during the 1980s.

In the health ministry’s briefing and response to the U.N., officials focused on future improvements rather than past problems.

“Adoptions were mainly handled by private adoption agencies before, and while they presumably prioritized the best interests of the child, there may have also been other competing interests,” Lee said.

“Now, with the adoption system being restructured into a public framework, and with the Health Ministry and the government having a larger role in the process for approving adoptions, we have an opportunity to reassess whether international adoption is truly a necessary option,” she added, citing efforts to promote domestic adoptions.

UN urges Seoul to offer stronger remedies

U.N. investigators, including special rapporteurs on trafficking, enforced or involuntary disappearances and child abuse, raised the adoption issue with Seoul after months of communication with Yooree Kim. The 52-year-old was sent to a French family in 1984 without her biological parents’ consent, based on documents falsely describing her as an abandoned orphan.

Kim said she endured severe physical and sexual abuse by her adopters and petitioned the U.N. as part of a broader effort to seek accountability from governments and adoption agencies in South Korea and France.

Citing broader systemic issues and Kim’s case, U.N. investigators criticized South Korea for failing to give adoptees effective access to remedies for serious abuses and for the “possible denial of their rights to truth, reparations, and memorialization.”

They also voiced concern over the suspension of a government fact-finding investigation into past adoption abuses and fraud, despite reports of grave violations including cases that may amount to enforced disappearances.

In its response, South Korea highlighted past reforms focused on abuse prevention including a 2011 law that reinstated judicial oversight of foreign adoptions, which ended decades of control by private agencies and resulted in a significant drop in international placements.

South Korea also cited recent steps to centralize adoption authority.

However, the government said further adoption investigations and stronger reparations for victims would hinge on future legislation. It offered no new measures to address the vast backlog of inaccurate or falsified records that have blocked many adoptees from reconnecting with birth families or learning the truth about their origins.

Choi Jung Kyu, a human rights lawyer representing Kim, called South Korea’s response “perfunctory.” He noted promises of stronger reparations, which were meant to reduce the need for victims to litigate, are not clearly spelled out in draft bills proposing a relaunch of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses.

The government also vetoed a bill in April that would have removed the statute of limitations for state-related human rights violations, although that was before President Lee Jae Myung took office in June. Lee issued an apology in October over past adoption problems, as recommended by the truth commission.

Choi, who represents multiple plaintiffs suing the government over human rights abuses under past dictatorships, said they often face prolonged legal battles when authorities dismiss truth commission findings as inconclusive or cite expired statutes of limitations.

Pressure grows to address adoption problems

Kim, who could not immediately be reached for comment, filed a rare petition for compensation against the South Korean government in August, noting that authorities at the time of her adoption falsely documented her as an orphan despite having a family.

Following a nearly three-year investigation into complaints from 367 adoptees in Europe, the U.S. and Australia, the truth commission in March recognized Kim and 55 other adoptees as victims of human rights violations including falsified child origins, lost records and child protection failures.

That was weeks before the commission halted its adoption investigation following internal disputes among commissioners over which cases warranted recognition as problematic. The fate of the remaining 311 cases, either deferred or incompletely reviewed, hinges on whether lawmakers establish a new truth commission through legislation.

The commission’s findings acknowledged state responsibility for facilitating a foreign adoption program rife with fraud and abuse. The program was driven by efforts to reduce welfare costs and enabled by private agencies that often manipulated children’s backgrounds and origins. The findings largely aligned with previous reporting by The Associated Press.

The AP investigation, in collaboration with Frontline (PBS), detailed how South Korea’s government, Western countries and adoption agencies worked in tandem to send some 200,000 Korean children overseas despite evidence that many were procured through questionable or unscrupulous means.

Seoul’s past military governments passed special laws promoting foreign adoptions, removing judicial oversight and giving vast powers to private agencies, which bypassed proper child relinquishment procedures while shipping thousands of children overseas each year.

Western nations largely ignored the abuses and sometimes pressured South Korea to maintain the supply to meet their high demand for babies.

As the December sun set over central Utah’s sandstone peaks, a couple ventured down a nondescript dirt road to snap photos against the backdrop of a red rock vista. Instead, they stumbled across a grisly discovery among smattered shrubs and parched soil: the decomposed remains of a little girl.

When sheriff’s deputies arrived in the sparsely populated stretch of Caineville, it was clear they would be investigating a homicide. The unidentifiable girl had died from gunshot wounds to her head, authorities later said.

Unbeknownst to investigators at the time, they had before them the remains of 9-year-old California girl Melodee Buzzard, whose confounding disappearance during a road trip with her mother had mobilized a vast network of local, state and federal investigators who searched for two months across eight states. An image of her cheeky smile and cascade of ringlet curls had been projected across the nation by media, law enforcement and the concerned public.

Ultimately, it would take two more weeks before they determined all signs pointed to a suspect whom Melodee “trusted the most in this world,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff-Coroner Bill Brown said.

Melodee’s mother, Ashlee Buzzard, was arrested Tuesday and charged with first-degree murder in her daughter’s killing, which a criminal complaint said was carried out with exceptional “cruelty” and “viciousness.” She is scheduled to appear in court Friday morning.

Investigators said they were stymied by “deliberate efforts” to hide the truth – clumsy disguises, swapped license plates and suspicious driving – and an uncooperative mother who could never provide a reasonable explanation for Melodee’s whereabouts. CNN is working to determine whether Buzzard has retained an attorney.

Here’s how investigators say they finally pieced together DNA, ballistics and a multi-state web of leads to connect Melodee’s mother to her killing.

A home without Melodee

The universe where Melodee lived with her mother was small. It revolved around a single-story home that looked like any other in their Lompoc, California, neighborhood, where the streets bore whimsical names like “Stardust Road,” “Pluto Avenue” and “Solar Way.”

Many of Melodee’s extended relatives had not seen her for years. They had lost contact with the mother and child after Melodee’s father died in a motorcycle accident when she was a baby, her aunt, Lizabeth Meza, told NewsNation.

It was not her family that reported her missing in October, but a concerned school administrator.

On October 14, Melodee’s school asked the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office to do a welfare check on the child due to her “prolonged absence,” according to a timeline from investigators.

School employees had not seen Melodee since August, when Buzzard enrolled her in a study program that would allow her to attend school remotely, according to the sheriff’s office and Lompoc Unified School District. This school sighting helped detectives narrow their search early in the investigation, when the previous sighting of Melodee was sometime last year.

Officers arrived at the Buzzard family home on October 14 but only found Ashlee Buzzard, who had “no verifiable explanation for Melodee’s whereabouts,” the sheriff’s office said.

When they searched the home, Melodee was nowhere to be found.

Unraveling a winding multi-state road trip

The next day, investigators executed a search warrant on the Buzzard home and uncovered information that would dramatically narrow their search window.

Buzzard had recently rented a car at a local rental agency, where surveillance cameras captured Buzzard and Melodee disguised in wigs, the sheriff’s office said. Images released to the public show Buzzard in thick golden curls and Melodee with a hoodie pulled over thick bangs.

As they drove, Buzzard swapped the car license plate, put on a new wig, and backed the car into gas stations in an apparent attempt to avoid surveillance cameras, Brown alleged, citing evidence gathered by investigators, including surveillance footage.

Melodee was last seen on video with Ashlee on October 9 near the Colorado and Utah state line. Detectives now believe Melodee was killed shortly after this sighting, the sheriff said.

Buzzard returned to their Lompoc home the next day without Melodee, the sheriff’s office said.

FBI agents and sheriff’s deputies executed another search warrant on October 30 at Buzzard’s home, a storage unit she had rented and the rental vehicle, the sheriff said.

A spent bullet casing was found inside the home, and a similar round of live ammunition was found in the car, the sheriff said. The expended casing was submitted to a national ballistic imaging database, called NIBIN, run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

As Buzzard remained uncooperative, officers surveilled the mother “around-the-clock,” while others spent weeks painstakingly following promising leads, the sheriff said.

The sheriff’s office continuously updated the public and asked for their help submitting tips, walking a thin line as they tried to share as much information as possible without compromising their efforts.

All the while, officers were “hoping against hope that she would be safely found,” Brown said.

A crucial backroad discovery

Despite the relentless search for Melodee, the discovery of her remains was an unlikely accident.

Her body was found in the rural community of Caineville, Utah, where a handful of homes are separated by long stretches of land and wrinkled stone outcroppings. And the couple who mistakenly found her had pulled off a state highway onto an easily missed dirt road.

Until the December 8 discovery, the case had appeared to stall and detectives lacked definitive evidence to charge Buzzard in her daughter’s disappearance. But the remains – later identified as Melodee – and items left at the scene provided key links to Buzzard, the sheriff said.

After the unidentified body was found, a lab in Utah analyzed items left at the scene, according to the sheriff in Wayne County.

“In less than 24 hours, the Crime Lab obtained confirmation that the Wayne County case was connected to the Santa Barbara case,” Sheriff Micah Gulley said in a statement.

Cartridge cases found at the scene were flagged in the NIBIN database as linked to the single cartridge that was found at Buzzard’s home, the sheriff said. Prosecutors later wrote that Buzzard allegedly killed Melodee using a 9mm gun.

It wasn’t until December 22 that an FBI Crime Lab was able to determine that the remains from Utah were a “familial DNA match” to Buzzard, and investigators got a warrant to arrest Buzzard on suspicion of murder.

“We have recovered a significant amount of evidence that clearly indicates that this heinous crime was committed by Ashlee Buzzard,” Brown announced after Buzzard’s Tuesday arrest.

Buzzard was formally charged on Christmas Eve and is being held without bail. In a criminal complaint, prosecutors accused her of “lying in wait” to kill Melodee as the child was “particularly vulnerable.”

Though investigators believe the killing was planned before they embarked on the road trip, they have still not located a weapon or been able to pinpoint a motive.

Brown said Tuesday that the “ruthlessness” of the killing and the degree of alleged premeditation are difficult to understand.

“This level of criminal activity is particularly shocking given the calculated, cold-blooded and criminally sophisticated premeditation and heartlessness that went into planning it,” he said.

Mapping Buzzard’s movements across states required coordination from more than a dozen agencies, including FBI field offices in seven cities, FBI Special Agent in Charge Patrick Grandy said.

But as the case goes to trial, the FBI will continue to assist local law enforcement through lab analysis and by pursuing remaining leads. Grandy encouraged the public to keep reaching out with information that may help investigators.

The sheriff said the mother has remained uncooperative after her arrest, adding “there was no change in her attitude and her demeanor.”

While the remains offered a breakthrough in the case, they also delivered a heartbreaking blow to the investigators who had dedicated months to recovering the lost child, Grandy said.

“We were all hoping to find Melodee alive, as you undoubtedly were as well,” Grandy said to reporters. Brown added that his agency has been “deeply affected” by the case.

The sheriff took a moment during Tuesday’s news conference to speak directly to Melodee’s family, who he said endured “unimaginable pain throughout this ordeal.”

“Their strength, their patience and their steadfast hope have been evident from the very beginning,” Brown said. “No family should ever have to experience this kind of loss, and our hearts are with them today and will be with them in the difficult days ahead.”

He later added, “May God bless the innocent soul of Melodee Elani Buzzard, who we will never, ever forget.”

CNN’s Josh Campbell and Michelle Watson contributed to this report.

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Dec 24, 2025Ravie LakshmananArtificial Intelligence / Cryptocurrency

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed charges against multiple companies for their alleged involvement in an elaborate cryptocurrency scam that swindled more than $14 million from retail investors.

The complaint charged crypto asset trading platforms Morocoin Tech Corp., Berge Blockchain Technology Co., Ltd., and Cirkor Inc., as well as investment clubs AI Wealth Inc., Lane Wealth Inc., AI Investment Education Foundation (AIIEF) Ltd., and Zenith Asset Tech Foundation, in connection with the operation.

The SEC said the scam unfolded as a multi-step fraud that enticed unsuspecting users with ads on social media and built trust with them through group chats in which the scammers posed as financial professionals and promised returns from artificial intelligence (AI)-generated investment tips.

The fraudsters then convinced the victims to invest their funds into fake cryptocurrency asset trading platforms, only to defraud them later.

According to the SEC, AI Wealth, Lane Wealth, AIIEF, and Zenith operated investment clubs on messaging apps like WhatsApp to which retail investors were lured into joining via ads on social media. While AI Wealth and Lane Wealth operated their WhatsApp groups from at least January 2024 to June 2024, AIIEF and Zenith ran from at least July 2024 to January 2025.

The complaint alleges an unnamed individual based in Beijing, China, paid for the registrations of AI Wealth, Lane Wealth, and Zenith. The details of the cryptocurrency platforms are as follows –

• Morocoin Tech Corp. – Established around December 2023 and accessible at h5.morocoin[.]top (Currently delinquent)
• Berge Blockchain Technology Co., Ltd. – Established around June 2022 and accessible at www.bergev[.]org (Currently delinquent)
• Cirkor Inc. – Established around May 2024 and accessible at www.cirkortrading[.]com (Administratively dissolved in October 2025)

Each of these clubs included a “professor” who sent updates to investors via WhatsApp on macroeconomic conditions or commentary on stocks and an “assistant” who handled day-to-day interactions with participants. These personas also send trade recommendations that they falsely claimed were based on AI-generated “signals.”

“The clubs gained investors’ confidence with supposedly AI-generated investment tips before luring investors to open and fund accounts on purported crypto asset trading platforms Morocoin, Berge, and Cirkor, which falsely claimed to have government licenses, as alleged,” the SEC said.

“The investment clubs and platforms then allegedly offered ‘Security Token Offerings’ that were purportedly issued by legitimate businesses. In reality, no trading took place on the trading platforms, which were fake, and the Security Token Offerings and their purported issuing companies did not exist.”

The AI Wealth and Lane Wealth WhatsApp groups are said to have promoted an STO of a cryptocurrency asset called SCT, purportedly issued by the company SatCommTech. Likewise, the AIIEF and Zenith WhatsApp groups advertised an STO of another crypto asset called HMB that was issued by HumanBlock. Both SatCommTech and HumanBlock have been identified as fictitious.

To make matters worse, when investors attempted to withdraw their funds, the bogus platforms defrauded them a second time by demanding that they pay advance fees to gain access to money in their accounts. In the end, the platforms cut off investors’ access to their services.

The ill-gotten proceeds, totaling at least $14 million, were moved overseas through a web of bank accounts and crypto asset wallets, in some cases through accounts held by Chinese or Burmese individuals located in Southeast Asia. Of the total misappropriated funds, cryptocurrency assets account for at least $7.4 million, and fiat currency accounts for $6.6 million.

In one case, a Morocoin investor made seven separate wires amounting to more than $1 million to accounts in China and Hong Kong. In another, a Cirkor investor wired over $1.4 million to a bank in Indonesia. There have also been multiple reports on Reddit about individuals losing their money to the scam, with the AIIEF flagged for using names like “Richard Dill” and “Daisy Akemi” for professors and assistants.

The defendants have been charged with violating the anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. In addition, the SEC is seeking permanent injunctions and civil penalties, along with the repayment of the money with prejudgment interest.

“This matter highlights an all-too-common form of investment scam that is being used to target U.S. retail investors with devastating consequences,” said Laura D’Allaird, Chief of the Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit. “Fraud is fraud, and we will vigorously pursue securities fraud that harms retail investors.”