Financial Supervisory Service and Bank of Korea Exam Overlap Leads to Twin Proxy Test-Taking... Ultimately Resulting in Imprisonment

Court: "Damage to other applicants who prepared diligently"

A pair of twin brothers who exploited their similar appearances to take the Financial Supervisory Service recruitment exam on each other's behalf were sentenced to prison. The younger brother, who led the crime, was sentenced to actual imprisonment and taken into custody, while the older brother, who was asked to take the exam as a proxy, received a suspended sentence.

On the 24th, Judge Kang Ji-yeop of the Criminal Division 4 at the Namyangju Branch of Uijeongbu District Court sentenced the younger twin brother A (35), who was indicted without detention on charges of obstruction of business and forgery of official documents, to one year in prison and ordered his detention in court, citing "risk of flight." The older brother B, who was indicted on the same charges, was sentenced to six months in prison with a one-year suspension of execution.

[Photo by Yonhap News]

A was indicted for having his older brother take the Financial Supervisory Service’s first written exam in September 2022 using his own resident registration card. Investigations revealed that A had applied simultaneously for positions at the Bank of Korea and the Financial Supervisory Service, but when the dates of the first written exams overlapped, he had his older brother, who looked similar, take the exam on his behalf.

After passing the first written exams for both institutions, A concealed the fact that his brother had taken the exam for him and personally took the Financial Supervisory Service’s second written exam and first interview, passing both.

However, after ultimately passing the Bank of Korea exam, A gave up on the Financial Supervisory Service’s second interview.

This case came to light last year when suspicions about A’s proxy exam attendance were raised on the anonymous workplace app "Blind." The Bank of Korea identified this through an audit and subsequently reported the twin brothers to investigative authorities. After being indicted in May, A was dismissed from the Bank of Korea.

The court stated, "Defendant A had the opportunity to apply for recruitment procedures at two institutions that cannot be taken by the same person simultaneously by having his twin brother, who looks similar, take the Financial Supervisory Service exam on his behalf. This undermines the fundamental and important values of fairness and trust in the recruitment process, and considering the method and outcome of the crime, the nature of the offense is very serious."

It added, "Due to this crime, many Financial Supervisory Service applicants who had diligently prepared for a long time were unable to participate in additional recruitment procedures, causing significant obstruction of business. The defendant continued to obstruct business by repeatedly taking subsequent Financial Supervisory Service exams, making severe punishment unavoidable."

The court explained the sentencing rationale, saying, "However, the defendants fully admitted to the crime and are first-time offenders, and in B’s case, he reluctantly took the proxy exam at his younger brother’s request, which are factors to be considered."

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