South Korean actress Hwang Jung-eum receives suspended sentence for embezzling public funds to invest in cryptocurrency

PANews reported on September 26th that, according to Decrypt, South Korean actor Hwang Jung-eum was sentenced by the Jeju District Court to two years in prison, followed by four years of probation, for violating the Aggravated Punishment Act for Specific Economic Crimes by embezzling approximately 4.34 billion won (approximately US$3 million) from his personally controlled agency to invest in cryptocurrency. Prosecutors had requested a three-year prison sentence in August , but the court ultimately considered it a first-time offense and that the full amount had been returned . The verdict indicated that approximately 4.2 billion won of the funds was directly invested in crypto assets , with the remainder used to pay taxes. His legal counsel stated that the funds involved were personal acting income, temporarily held in his name because the company is prohibited from directly holding crypto assets. The incident led to the actor's removal from variety show and advertising partnerships.