A claim has been raised that soldiers suffered financial losses after a fellow soldier used mobile phones that had been turned in after duty hours at a military unit. The allegation is that one soldier used other service members' phones to pay for in-game currency and then converted it to cash.
On the 7th, a post titled "After I turned in my phone, 15 million won was charged" was uploaded to the online community BobaeDream. The writer claimed that one soldier siphoned off a total of about 15 million won from several service members. So far, 11 victims have been identified, and the individual losses are reportedly in the range of 200,000 to 2 million won.
According to the writer, the soldier knew the door lock password for the administrative office, where a phone locker is located. Exploiting the fact that the soldier was solely responsible for cleaning the administrative office, the soldier accessed the locker during the phone turn-in time and on weekends. The soldier inserted the soldier's own SIM into other service members' phones and paid for in-game currency for MapleStory and Lineage, among others. The writer said the currency was then converted to cash and is believed to have been used as gambling funds.
The writer explained that this soldier had previously caused damage of about 10 million won to a junior soldier. At the time, the unit designated the soldier as a "support-and-care soldier." Nevertheless, the unit continued to assign the soldier to clean the administrative office with the phone locker and also shared the door lock password, the writer pointed out.
The response after the incident was also inadequate, the writer claimed. The writer said the unit only took basic steps such as reporting to the military police and was passive about recovering the losses. The writer also stressed that the perpetrating soldier's discharge is imminent but the investigation is being delayed.
The writer urged, "Since this is a crime that occurred in an environment where the state mandated the turn-in of mobile phones, a strict investigation into the perpetrator is needed, along with determining the unit's management responsibility."
So far, these allegations have been raised through an online post, and the military authorities have not issued an official position.