- The weirdest part about this whole thing is that he may not even go to prison.
With all the trust placed on them and the resources they have access to, bankers are often in a great position to embezzle money. There are many stories out there of bankers using ingenious methods to make off with thousands, if not millions, of dollars.
This is not one of those cases.
A South Korean banker has been caught after embezzling more than $40,000 in cash from his bank’s vault. He was able to freely carry out the theft by being the only one in the bank to handle physical money.
Still, he wanted to cover his tracks, just in case. So, he swapped the stolen bills with fake ones.
These weren’t some intricately crafted facsimiles, though. The bills the banker left in the vault had colorful cartoon designs on them, being basically Monopoly money.
To no one’s surprise, his plot wasn’t very long-lived. What is surprising, though, is that the banker hasn’t been arrested but only fired.
Opportunity Makes a Thief
According to local news reports, the fraud took place at a branch of the Saemaul Geumgo credit union. The financial institution is particularly popular in small localities and in the countryside, serving millions of customers across South Korea.
The name of the dishonest branch manager has not been published. However, he worked at a branch in the city of Gyeongju.
As reported by the Chosun Daily, this was a very small branch with just a handful of employees. Due to its tiny size, the bank manager was the only person with authorization to deposit money in the vault at the end of the day.
This position put an enormous amount of trust in the manager. At the same time, though, it put him in the ideal position to dip into the vault and walk home with a briefcase full of cold, hard cash.
Toy Money
However, he knew that a steadily dwindling cash pile in the vault would soon raise suspicions. He had to replace the disappearing money with something, and he knew just the thing.
Now, some criminals may have resorted to carefully forged fake bills. Not our banker, though.
Instead, he used play money.
He would leave the top and bottom bills of each wad of cash untouched. But between them, he replaced every bill with toy money bearing cartoonish designs.
Although the bills were more or less appropriately colored, even a brief glance at them quickly told you that they were fake. Instead of images of important national personalities, the bills had pictures of cartoon ducks and other similar characters.
According to media reports, he acquired the toy bills online. How long he kept up his scheme is unclear.
No Cops
Eventually, however, the banker’s luck ran out. He apparently wasn’t as nonchalant about his affairs as he thought, as another employee grew suspicious about his actions.
That employee reported the manager to higher-ups in the Saemaul corporation. They, however, didn’t inform the police and launched an independent investigation.
The bank’s reasoning for handling the incident on their own was to prevent possible reputational damage. Considering that you’re reading about the case now, it didn’t work.
As part of the investigation, the bank sent inspectors to the branch. As soon as they peeked into the vault, the banker’s jig was up.
Yet, he hasn’t gone to jail (at least not yet). In a statement, the bank said that it had fired the manager without informing the authorities.
Additionally, the Saemaul Bank said the manager had returned all the stolen money. With that, they consider the case closed.
It’s not clear whether the banker will face any legal fallout for his crimes. If not, he really got away scot-free from his poorly planned scheme.
For more strange South Korean financial crimes, read our article about the cybercriminal who emptied the Korean police’s Bitcoin wallet.