Cop gets six-year prison sentence for taking $90,000 in crypto-linked bribes

A senior South Korean police officer in his 40s has been sentenced to six years in prison for taking approximately $90,000 in bribes from suspects linked to gambling and crypto investment fraud.

The Uijeongbu District Court’s Goyang branch said the man “greatly damaged the fairness and integrity of public office and social trust,” Chosun Ilbo reported.

He was convicted of aggravated bribery, solicitation of bribes and fraud for taking about $38,000 in cash and roughly $53,000 in entertainment expenses between December 2023 and March 2024 while serving at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.

The case highlights yet another blunder for South Korean authorities.

In recent weeks, reports emerged of police losing track of millions in Bitcoin and of the government accidentally publishing seed phrases for a crypto wallet containing millions.

‘Enjoyed entertainment’

South Korea’s latest criminal case also lands as authorities have ramped up investigations into illegal online gambling, unregistered cryptocurrency sales and organised crypto investment scams that draw in retail victims.

The concentration of large sums of digital wealth in relatively small networks has created fertile ground not only for fraudsters but also for corruption risks within enforcement bodies themselves.

The South Korean bribery case reveals another pressure point: corruption risks within law enforcement itself.

As police departments handle more crypto-linked fraud and gambling investigations, officers gain access to sensitive information about suspects and high-value digital holdings.

“The defendant thought that his authority as an executive-level police civil servant was power, and he enjoyed entertainment or collected money and goods without any guilt while mingling with the people who were under investigation,” Chosun Ilbo quoted the court as saying during the sentencing.

Lost Bitcoin

South Korean authorities are facing public scrutiny after two separate blunders exposed millions of dollars in cryptocurrency to theft while in police custody.

In one case, police in Seoul’s Gangnam district lost 22 Bitcoin worth about $1.4 million after failing to follow official guidelines for storing seized crypto.

Instead of transferring the assets to a police-controlled cold wallet, officers left the coins in a wallet managed by a private company and never obtained the seed phrases. The Bitcoin later vanished, and two suspects have since been arrested while the incident remains under investigation.

In a separate case, South Korea’s National Tax Service accidentally published the seed phrases to confiscated crypto wallets in a press release photo.

An anonymous hacker quickly used the phrases to access and drain the funds, reportedly worth up to $5 million, though officials say the actual value was much lower.

Authorities are now working with police to recover the assets and have apologised, admitting the leak resulted from carelessness when sharing the image with the media

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at [email protected].