The man in charge of the Bitcoin crackdown was found dead on Sunday morning

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Jung Ki-joon, Head of the Economic Policy Coordination Office for the South Korean Government, is thought to have suffered a heart attack while sleeping on Saturday night and was not found until his family went to wake him up on Sunday morning.

The exact cause of his death cannot be confirmed until the police get a report from the coroner’s office.

Mr Jung had been handed a new job leading the Seoul crack down on the cryptocurrency industry near the end of last year.

Just last month South Korea introduced a raft of measures aimed at regulating Bitcoin and similar currencies such as Ripple and Ethereum.