Travel Agency Employee Who Embezzled 1 Billion Won Over 5 Years by Forging Documents Sentenced to Prison in First Trial

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Taewon] A woman in her 40s who embezzled over 1 billion won over about five years by submitting false expense reports was sentenced to prison by the court.

On the 24th, according to the legal community, Judge Jeong Geum-young of the Criminal Division 4 at the Seoul Western District Court sentenced A (43), who was indicted on charges of fraud, forgery of private documents, and use of forged private documents, to 10 months in prison. Co-defendant B (46) was sentenced to 6 months in prison with a 2-year probation and ordered to perform 80 hours of community service. The court stated the sentencing reasons, saying, "The crime began less than a month after A joined the company and continued for a long period of five years, with a large amount embezzled," but also noted, "The defendants have no prior criminal records, and A compensated the victim with 40 million won after the crime was uncovered."

A is accused of submitting forged airline ticket expense reports 156 times from 2014 to 2019 at the travel agency where she worked, embezzling 435,424,820 won, and from 2018 to 2019, submitting forged documents 50 times to embezzle 169,012,400 won.

Additionally, A is accused of submitting forged documents to the company to use as unpaid airline ticket fares for tickets that had already been paid for by the company but were not issued due to her mistake, embezzling 421,132,000 won.

During the crime, A abused her authority to approve airline tickets priced under 5 million won. It is known that A deceived the company by transferring money to an account in B's name as payment for airline ticket purchases and then receiving the money back through retransfers.

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