Suspected illegal short-selling alerts reported to South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), the country’s financial regulator, rose from 2 cases in 2020 to 77 in 2024, a 38.5-fold increase. Annual figures were 17 in 2021, 22 in 2022, 39 in 2023 and 47 in 2024; 42 cases were reported through July this year, bringing the cumulative total since 2020 to 246. The Central Short-Selling Monitoring System (NSDS) flagged 94 suspected cases during its first 16 months after launching on March 31 last year alongside the full resumption of short selling. The system continuously monitors institutional short sellers’ intraday balances and sell orders for suspicious activity, including naked short selling, and accounted for 85.7% of this year’s 42 cases. The figures are alerts for further investigation, not confirmed violations, and Representative Park Sung-hoon called for faster investigations, sanctions and recovery of illicit profits to restore market trust.