A senior South Korean sports committee accountant who manages state funds for mass sports has confessed to stealing taxpayer money in exchange for cryptocurrency.
An employee of the sports council of the South Korean city of Mokpo, who is responsible for the operating expenses of local amateur and semi-professional sports teams, stole more than $ 367,000. The official and her husband spent the money on investments in cryptocurrency.
A few months ago, the sports committee was faced with unexpected budgetary problems: officials found irregular, odd withdrawals from the account, with excessive amounts of money being charged to expenses.
Soon one of the senior accounting staff stopped showing up for work. The woman came under suspicion of embezzlement of public funds, and the police interrogated her. During interrogation, the official pleaded guilty, stating that since March 2022, she “stole state money” 20 times.
The accountant had access to the coaches’ salary fund and money allocated as subsidies to teams and individual athletes. The woman bypassed the “internal monitoring systems” and took advantage of some loopholes.
The police reported that the woman transferred the stolen money to her husband’s account. The couple then spent the money together to invest in crypto assets. The woman said that she personally invested part of the stolen funds in bitcoins.
The incident caused significant financial damage to the sports committee, and as a result, it cannot now fully pay the salaries of coaches and other staff.
