A Female Employee in Her 40s at a Financial Institution Embezzled 1.6 Billion KRW from Merchants Over 20 Years... Busan Police Launch Fraud Investigation

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Hwang Du-yeol] An employee of a financial institution in Busan is under police investigation for secretly embezzling money from merchants at Gukje Market.

A woman in her 40s, identified as Ms. A, is also suspected of forging documents while working as a second-tier financial institution employee to approach the merchants. It is known that Ms. A resigned from the financial institution in 2020.

According to the Busan Western Police Station on the 23rd, six people, including Mr. B, a merchant in his 70s from Gukje Market, filed a complaint against former financial institution employee Ms. A, accusing her of fraud amounting to approximately 1.6 billion KRW, and the police are currently investigating.

The victims, including Mr. B, claim that over more than 20 years, Ms. A built relationships with market merchants and secretly diverted money intended for deposit and savings accounts as well as loan repayments from the victims' accounts.

Mr. B said, “She took advantage of the fact that it was difficult for us to visit the financial institution and that electronic records were not thoroughly checked, so she introduced a ‘daily savings’ system where amounts were recorded manually. She also secretly created an additional check card when issuing check cards and withdrew money without authorization.”

Another victim, Mr. C, in his 40s, stated, “Trusting Ms. A, with whom I had a long-standing business relationship, I gave her 150 million KRW in loan repayments in several installments, but she used the money personally. She even manipulated deposit records to deceive me.”

Even after being dismissed, Ms. A continued to deceive others by falsifying her identity and borrowing loans from other merchants, which she then took.

Merchants Mr. D, in his 50s, and Mr. E, in his 40s, lent money to Ms. A after she asked to borrow funds, taking out loans of 400 million KRW and 130 million KRW respectively. Ms. A has not repaid the borrowed money.

The victims realized they had been defrauded when they received loan repayment reminder texts from the financial institution.

Ms. A was dismissed in July 2020 after it was revealed that she used members’ overdraft accounts for investment purposes.

One victim stated, “Since Ms. A worked at a branch near Gukje Market for over 20 years, we suspect there may be more victims,” and added, “The financial institution’s lax management exacerbated the damage.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.