According to local media reports, a South Korean court had handed over a punishment to a civil servant for corruption. The court found the officer guilty of stealing thousands of USD worth of public funds to pay for crypto investments.

As stated in the media reports, the public official was handed a one-year suspended prison sentence, as well as two years of probation. However, the official was not named for legal reasons.

Sources reveal that the individual was in charge of budget expenditure at an administrative welfare center in the city of Ulsan, South Gyeongsang Province. The court heard that the official siphoned off a total of around $159,000 (210 million won) worth of public funds from the center over the course of 41 separate transfers.

Further, the court was told that the accused tried to cover their traces by marking the embezzlement as “expenses.” On many occasions, huge sums of money were written off as “stationary purchases” or “office supplies.” Additionally, the official also wrote off embezzled money as “security payments” and “electricity bill settlements” to drive speculations away.

According to the investigating officers, the accused spent “most” of the embezzled funds on crypto investments and had already “suffered huge losses from investing in cryptocurrency” before they began raiding public accounts. 

Reportedly, the accused official embezzled the funds between June and December 2022.Some local media outlets have cited the punishment to be overly lenient, particularly while the national news is still being dominated by several types of crypto scandals at the moment. Addressing the concern, the presiding judge explained their reason for the sentence, stating:

[The court] has taken into account the fact that all the embezzled money was repaid to the local government. The court has also considered the fact that the accused will likely lose their position, and the fact that the accused actively cooperated with the police and prosecution’s investigation into the matter.

In recent times, South Korean officials have been found to be involved in criminal cases involving cryptocurrencies. In October last year, another South Korean public official escaped overseas with $2.8 million worth of crypto. Police believe the money was also embezzled from a public fund. 

Last week, police arrested a suspected crypto scammer who allegedly posed as a civil servant to dupe victims out of fiat and crypto holdings. Additionally, a politician is on the regulator’s radar for his transactions involving. 

The rising crimes have been a nightmare to the authorities as they were startled by a gruesome murder of a Korean citizen involving digital assets. Following the incident, the Korean lawmakers decided to expedite the nation’s first standalone crypto bill, which could be passed in a parliamentary vote soon. The new bill aims to grant the country’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) the power to oversee crypto companies and custody of assets. 

Simultaneously, the Bank of Korea (BoK) is making efforts to ensure ample investors’ protection in regard to virtual assets. The central bank has been given the power to investigate cryptocurrency-related businesses and request transaction data from crypto exchanges.

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