Gucci and Chanel bought with 'Beopka'... Accounting clerk embezzling 4.1 billion sentenced to 7 years in prison

Multiple Payments Exceeding 20 Million Won at Once

An accounting staff member of a small and medium-sized enterprise who purchased luxury goods multiple times using a corporate card in the company’s name and resold them to use as jeonse deposits received a heavy sentence.

According to the legal community on the 1st, the Seoul Central District Court Criminal Division 29 (Chief Judge Kim Seung-jung) sentenced A, a man in his 30s, who was indicted on charges of violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Economic Crimes (embezzlement), to seven years in prison on the 25th of last month.

A worked as an accountant at a company manufacturing illegal parking enforcement systems and made a total of 2,206 payments amounting to 4.10345 billion KRW using the company’s card over four years and eight months starting from 2018.

It was confirmed that the card was mainly used at luxury brand stores such as Gucci, Chanel, and Dior, and it was revealed that payments exceeding 20 million KRW at a time were made multiple times. It is reported that A resold some of the luxury goods purchased to convert them into cash and used them as jeonse deposits.

The court ordered A to compensate the company 4 billion KRW in embezzled funds, excluding the 100 million KRW already repaid to the company.

It added, "A large portion of the embezzled amount was used to purchase luxury goods, which is highly condemnable, and the nature of the crime is very serious," explaining, "The sentence was set higher than the upper limit of the recommended sentence under the sentencing guidelines."

Furthermore, the court stated, "Only 100 million KRW has been repaid so far, and most of the damage has not been recovered, and the victim company is petitioning for severe punishment," but added, "However, considering that the victim and the amount of damage are clear and that the company applied for a compensation order, the embezzled amount will not be confiscated."

Both A and the prosecution appealed against this ruling.

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