Shinhan Securities hid a ₩128.9B ETF-futures loss with a fake ₩130B swap profit

In August 2024, traders in the ETF-liquidity provider team at Shinhan Investment & Securities, one of South Korea's largest brokerages, bought ETF futures and were caught by a sharp plunge in the domestic stock market. The unauthorized trading ran up a loss of ₩128.9 billion — about $94 million — which the firm disclosed to the market in October 2024.

Instead of reporting the loss, two employees hid it. They falsely registered in the firm's electronic system a profit of ₩130 billion from so-called swap transactions that never made any money, and manipulated the management-accounting records used to set performance bonuses. A separate ₩108.5 billion loss on overseas ETF products in 2023 was papered over the same way; the two received performance bonuses of ₩137.52 million and ₩341.77 million before the fraud surfaced.

The Seoul Southern District Court sentenced the two employees to three years each in the first trial in June 2025. On appeal on 23 October 2025 the Criminal Appellate Division 3-2 reduced each sentence to two years and six months. Beyond the individuals, the episode is a control failure: a desk lost more than $90 million and the books were gamed to make it disappear, a risk-management gap that cost the brokerage both the money and its credibility.