Media reports revealed that some Republic of Korea Army (ROKA) commanders may have borrowed money from loan sharks. It’s reported that they will use this to buy cryptocurrency using top-secret military passwords as collateral.
The unidentified captain was given a suspended prison term in June of this year, according to the nation’s military Ministry of National Defence. The ministry also said that he was officially released from the service on September 19, 2024.
A spokeswoman claimed that officers from the Defence Counterintelligence Command ‘became aware of the crime committed by an active-duty captain early this year’. This crime involved soldiers trading crypto after loan sharks ‘took passwords as collateral’.
In March 2024, the captain was accused of breaking the Military Secrets Protection Act at a military court. He received a four-year suspension from his two years and six months in jail, shocking many crypto users casually looking for a safe and reliable casino site but got caught up on the news.
The national intelligence agency is looking into additional allegations that ‘active-duty officers’ in a Chungcheong military unit used passwords to get loans. Their goal was to trade or invest in crypto.
Authorities at the local and state levels have both acknowledged that investigations are underway. Nevertheless, they insisted they were unable to ‘disclose specific facts about the case’.
Reports say that the majority of the troops engaged in the incident were officers in their twenties and thirties. These troops urgently wanted a loan for crypto trading or investment.
When the military officials applied for loans at commercial bank branches, they were allegedly turned down. The loan sharks reportedly took the soldiers up on their offer to use the passwords as collateral.
After that, the troops spent the cash on tokens from crypto exchanges. The amount of money and the type of tokens involved were not disclosed by spokespeople. It’s also reported that the soldiers who took out the loans would be ‘put at risk’ if repayment was late.
Charges to be filed against soldiers
The group is expected to face charges for allegedly violating the Military Secrets Protection Act, as intended by the investigating authorities. The counterintelligence service said that the troops’ purported shared passwords were classified as ‘level 3 secrets’.
The Democratic Party has targeted President Yoon Seok-yeol and the governing People’s Power Party, among others, as politicians have been eager to assign blame. Private loan sharks have put military security at risk, and their claims of flaws in the military’s security system are inaccurate. It would be more accurate to state that the military has installed automated doors.
Passwords at the Level 3 military level are changed daily and cannot be sent via chat applications or phone lines. They need to be destroyed right away if they leak.
Cho Do-hyun, a Seoul citizen, expressed his ‘angry’ reaction to the news. ‘To put national security at risk in this way for the sake of individual wealth is a morally repugnant act. It belittles those of us who served our nation honourably in the military and who have since served our countrymen’. In its first year of existence, the nation’s newest crypto investigation team recovered assets worth $107 million. Although the crypto industry is booming, crypto scams are also on the rise, worrying crypto players who are in search of a safe and reliable casino site. The public is reminded to research and be cautious to avoid falling for scams.
