A South Korean court has sentenced a civil servant to five years in prison for embezzling approximately $427,800 (600 million won) in public funds. The civil servant at Cheongju City Hall was responsible for student work activities and North Korean defector settlement support projects.
Sentenced to Five Years Jail-Term
The embezzlement, which started in January 2017, lasted seven years and involved forging various official documents. The stolen funds were used to invest in crypto and stocks. He also used part of it to pay off personal debt.
The civil servant likely invested the embezzled funds in crypto, intending to make returns and replace the money before being caught. This strategy, often called “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” is common in embezzlement and other financial misconduct cases.
Perpetrators often attempt to use investments or other financial instruments to replace stolen funds, but these schemes can be complex and challenging to sustain. Whichever reasons he may have had for investing in crypto with stolen funds, the plan ultimately backfired, and he was caught and brought to justice.
Judge Kwon No-eul of the Cheongju District Court stated that the defendant’s repeated offenses over a long period, combined with the fact that only a portion of the damages were paid, contributed to the severity of the sentence.
Not the First
Recently, a Chinese government official was also sentenced to life imprisonment for betraying national trust by selling classified state secrets to an unauthorized third party. Foreign agents exploited his vulnerability, offering him compensation for classified data. He eventually supplied the internal documents for significant sums, receiving over $140,000 via crypto transactions.
Chandrahar SR, a former Indian police inspector, was also charged with stealing about $216,000 worth of Bitcoin from hackers. As part of the investigation team, he allegedly accessed the hackers’ Bitcoin wallets and transferred the funds to his accounts while destroying the evidence to cover his tracks.
Officials’ misuse of power to engage in criminal activities can have far-reaching consequences. To prevent such abuses, the government should have robust systems of accountability and transparency in place. This includes measures such as periodic investigations and whistleblower protection laws.
