An employee of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has been handed over to prosecutors on suspicion of conducting a multi-hundred-million-won "gift card cash-out" using a corporate card.
The anti-corruption investigation unit of the Daejeon Metropolitan Police Agency said on Apr. 1 that it had arrested and referred for indictment a KAIST employee in their 30s, identified as A, on charges of occupational breach of trust and fraud.
A is accused of purchasing about 900 million won worth of gift cards with a corporate card over three years from 2022 to last year, when A was in charge of managing budget execution, and using them for personal purposes.
After buying gift cards with the school's corporate card, A resold them to obtain cash. It was confirmed that part of the cashed-out money was used personally, and the rest was used to pay corporate card bills in a rollover scheme.
The school detected signs of A's embezzlement in its own audit last year and requested a police investigation.