Kyungpook National University club president disciplined for investing public funds in stocks

The president of a student club at Kyungpook National University has been disciplined after being caught diverting club funds worth several million won for personal investment.

According to the university Wednesday, the Central Audit Committee of the General Student Council imposed a repayment order on the former president, identified only as A, for misappropriating more than 6 million won ($3,930) in club funds for personal use.

A had served as president of an on-campus club identified only as B. An investigation found that from July last year through March this year, A transferred a total of 6.775 million won from the club's account to a personal account and used the money to purchase preferred shares of Samsung Fire.

A routed the funds by first topping up Coupang Inc.'s simple payment service, Coupay, with club money and then transferring the balance to a personal brokerage account. The audit committee said the method was designed to make the actual flow of funds difficult to trace.

When the matter came to light, A reportedly explained that the stock investment had been made "thinking it would benefit the club's operations." According to the audit report, the investment did generate dividends of 247,455 won, which A said were spent on meals for club officers.

The audit committee, however, found evidence that figures in documents A submitted to the student council had been manipulated. A claimed that "in the process of using generative AI to organize the documents, the AI arbitrarily changed the figures."

When the committee asked A to submit AI conversation logs to verify the claim, A refused, saying the records no longer existed because a shared computer had been used.

The committee said it could not verify the full accounting flow due to missing and manipulated records, issued a "disclaimer of opinion," and ordered the recovery of 6.002 million won — the combined value of the stock holdings and dividends.

"Managing club funds through a personal brokerage account constitutes a serious violation of accounting order that gravely undermines the transparency and integrity of student society finances," the committee said. "Given the significant omissions in the submitted materials and the confirmed presence of serious misconduct, we have issued a final audit opinion of 'disclaimer of opinion.'"