Bank employees in Korea forge client identities to illegally divert 18 billion Korean won for cryptocurrency speculation

Bank employees in Korea forge client identities to illegally divert 18 billion Korean won for cryptocurrency speculation

Bank employees in Korea forge client identities to illegally divert 18 billion Korean won for cryptocurrency speculation

According to a report by South Korean media outlet “news1,” an employee of Korea’s Woori Bank has been arrested and sent to court for allegedly forging loan documents and embezzling 18 billion Korean won (approximately $16 million) of company funds. Initially, it was believed that the embezzled amount was 10 billion Korean won, but during the investigation, it was confirmed to be 18 billion Korean won.

The employee, during the period from July last year to May this year, took advantage of their position and forged loan documents for 17 individual and corporate clients, making a total of 35 fraudulent loan applications. They then embezzled approximately 17.77 billion Korean won (valued at around $12.83 million) by transferring the loan funds to acquaintances’ accounts.

In addition, the defendant is also accused of deceiving two individual loan clients from July to September last year by falsely claiming that they needed to temporarily withdraw the deposited loan amount to complete the remaining loan procedures. Through this scheme, approximately 220 million Korean won was transferred to an acquaintance’s account.

Prosecutors pointed out that the defendant orchestrated this series of criminal acts to raise funds for virtual asset investments. After tracking the accounts, prosecutors and the police found that approximately 15 billion Korean won was used to purchase virtual assets, around 2.7 billion Korean won was used to repay the loan debt generated by this criminal behavior through a “borrow new to repay old” method, and the remaining 300 million Korean won was used for personal purposes such as rent and living expenses.

Prosecutors have seized 180 million Korean won from the defendant’s residence and have frozen and recovered assets including approximately 4.5 billion Korean won worth of virtual asset exchange deposits, bank deposits, and rental deposits.