A university student who invested millions of won in club funds in stocks, claiming he wanted to grow the group's operating budget, was ultimately caught in an audit. As both the investment returns and the submitted documents became controversial, the school moved to recover the misused funds and to conduct further checks on the overall flow of the money.
The Central Audit Committee of Kyungpook University's Student Council recently disclosed the results of a special audit, announcing that it had imposed a disciplinary measure requiring the former president of a campus cooking-related club, identified as A, to return the misused club funds.
The audit found that from July last year to March this year, A transferred a total of 6.775 million won from the club's account to his own personal account without authorization, then purchased Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance preferred shares through his personal securities account. It was confirmed that there was no consent from other executives or any official resolution process during this process.
According to the audit committee, A charged the club funds onto Coupay, Coupang's simple payment service, and then moved them back to his own securities account. The committee determined that this method made it difficult to trace the actual flow of the funds.
During the audit, A explained that his intention was "to receive dividends and use them to help fund the club's operations." In the actual investment process, dividends of 247,455 won were generated, and he reportedly stated that he had used the amount to pay for meals for the club's executives.
Controversy also arose over the submitted documents during the audit. The committee said that the stock-related materials A submitted contained content that differed from the actual amounts. In response, A claimed that "I used generative AI to organize the materials, and the AI arbitrarily changed the amounts in the photos." However, when asked to submit the AI conversation records and the original materials, he reportedly did not do so, saying, "I used a public computer, so no records remain."
The Central Audit Committee concluded that it could not verify the entire accounting flow due to missing documents and signs of falsification, and issued a "disclaimer of opinion" decision. It then resolved to recover 6,002,455 won, including the stock assets and dividends held.
A later posted an apology on social media, stating, "If there are amounts and returns generated from those funds confirmed through the investigation, I will return all of them."
Kyungpook University is conducting additional checks on the specific process and circumstances of how the funds were spent, including whether A invested the club funds all at once or transferred them in several installments.
