South Korean Cop Sentenced to Six Years in Prison for Bribes Tied to Crypto Crime: Report

A former police officer in South Korea in charge of investigating cryptocurrency fraud cases has been sentenced to six years in prison for accepting 120 million won in bribes, or around $82,000 at today’s exchange rate, according to a local news report from Chosun Ilbo.  

The officer, identified as “Person A” in the report, accepted around 50 million won in cash and 70 million won via “entertainment fees” between December 2023 and March 2024. The individual was fined 100 million won, around $78,000, in addition to his sentence. 

“The defendant thought his authority as a senior police officer was power, and he enjoyed entertainment and accepted money without any guilt while associating with people under investigation,” the court said, according to the report. 

“This is an act that greatly undermines the fairness and appropriateness of the job and social trust,” it added, “so the guilt is heavy and the possibility of condemnation is very high.”

While working as a member of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, “Person A” was introduced to members of an organization under investigation by the office manager of a law firm—”Person B.” 

Those organization members then paid the former police officer to cover up the investigation, the report says. “Person B” also received a prison sentence of 2 years and 6 months, as well as a 50 million won ($34,000) fine. 

The bribery report follows some criminal complaints and other gaffes with crypto connections coming out of South Korea in recent weeks. 

Earlier this week, police said that individuals were paying with crypto for “private revenge” attacks ordered through Telegram, which included multiple events in which defamatory leaflets were dropped and doors were vandalized. In one incident, human waste was spread by the perpetrator. 

Also recently, a 39-year-old South Korean man was charged with attempted murder after allegedly poisoning his business partner last fall after the colleague mishandled a Bitcoin investment made on his behalf.

Last week, the nation’s tax service (NTS) published multiple images of crypto wallet seed phrases in a press release, exposing $4.8 million worth of tokens at face value. The tokens were initially swiped by an unknown perpetrator, but later returned. Plus, more than $1.4 million in Bitcoin was recently discovered missing from police custody after officers failed to comply with storage guidelines. 

The most notable error though may be Bithumb’s erroneous distribution of more than $43 billion worth of Bitcoin, which was issued to hundreds of total customers due to an internal system flaw. Most of the funds were quickly clawed back. South Korean regulators have come under fire for not previously finding the issue during inspections of the platform in recent years. 

As a result, the country’s finance minister pledged major reforms for governmental handling of digital assets after such incidents have piled up.