1620 Cases of Fraudulent National Subsidy Recipients Detected... Amounting to 137.2 Billion KRW

The National Police Agency's National Investigation Headquarters announced on the 20th that, as a result of a nationwide special crackdown on fraudulent receipt of government subsidies initiated in June, a total of 489 cases and 1,620 individuals were apprehended, with 24 people arrested, and fraudulent subsidy amounts totaling 137.26 billion KRW were uncovered.

This represents a significant increase compared to the same period last year in the number of cases apprehended (31.0%), number of individuals apprehended (94.7%), and amount of fraudulent subsidies detected (492.9%).

By subsidy sector, the breakdown was as follows: 39% (632 people) in the ‘social and welfare sector’ such as support funds for the disabled; 26.5% (430 people) in the ‘other sectors’ including industrial technology; 12.5% (202 people) in the ‘agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sector’ such as modernization of farming facilities; and 9.3% (151 people) in the ‘education and health sector’ including support funds for private schools.

By type of crime, the most common was falsely applying for subsidies to embezzle or repeatedly misappropriate them, accounting for 86.3% (1,398 people), followed by ‘use for purposes other than intended’ after legitimately applying for and receiving subsidies, which accounted for 13.6% (221 people).

The police notified subsidy payment agencies upon case referral to ensure recovery of funds and took pre-prosecution preservation measures on criminal proceeds amounting to 10.03 billion KRW during this special crackdown.

In particular, the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crime Investigation Unit of the Busan Police Agency apprehended 10 individuals, including the head of a company who fraudulently applied for youth employment support subsidies and embezzled approximately 4.1 billion KRW, arresting two of them and taking pre-prosecution preservation measures on criminal proceeds of 700 million KRW.

Yoon Hee-geun, Commissioner of the National Police Agency, stated, “Subsidy corruption is a fraud against the people’s taxes,” adding, “We will not be satisfied with the results of this crackdown and will continue to make every effort to strictly punish subsidy corruption to prevent leakage of national finances and realize economic justice.”

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