TL;DR
- Bank employee stole $724,620, diverting loan funds for crypto investments.
- Only $105,581 was recovered; the bank wrote off the loss.
- This follows a similar $7.3 million fraud case at Woori Bank.
Kwangju Bank reports an internal fraud case after a loan manager stole $724,620 and used the money for cryptocurrency investments. The bank states that the employee took the funds between May and November 2023, and the scheme came to light during a recent internal data review.
The bank says it detected the fraud while analyzing the interest history of a project-finance loan. “We identified the case during an internal review and we are assessing disciplinary measures once the audit concludes,” a spokesperson says.
The manager returned $105,581, but $619,100 remain unrecoverable due to losses from crypto investments, prompting the institution to write off that amount.
Criminal Investigation and Similar Incidents
The spokesperson explains that the employee altered interest rates on a loan to divert the funds into crypto purchases. Kwangju Bank suspended the manager and filed a criminal complaint. Police launched a parallel investigation.
The case mirrors an incident from June 2024, when prosecutors charged a former Woori Bank assistant with diverting $7.3 million through forged documents to finance large-scale digital-asset purchases. The suspect said he also lost most of the funds in cryptocurrency trades.
Regulatory Context and the Group’s Presence in the Crypto Sector
Kwangju Bank operates mainly in the city of Gwangju and South Jeolla Province. It forms part of JB Financial Group, which also controls Jeonbuk Bank. Jeonbuk Bank remains the only regional bank in South Korea that maintains a partnership with a local exchange after signing an agreement with GOPAX in August 2022.
South Korean regulations require exchanges to secure banking partnerships to offer services in Korean won. Platforms without such agreements can only operate crypto-to-crypto, which restricts their participation in the local market.
