Salt farm owner sentenced to three years for exploiting worker with intellectual disability
Published: 22 Apr. 2026, 19:54
![A worker on a salt farm in Shinan County, South Jeolla, on April 7, 2025. The image is unrelated to the story. [YONHAP]](https://koreaseafood.online/data/photo/2026/04/22/dfe3445f-5a22-4a9f-9364-1bc47a4ac5f9.jpg)
A worker on a salt farm in Shinan County, South Jeolla, on April 7, 2025. The image is unrelated to the story. [YONHAP]
A salt farm owner in South Jeolla was sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday for exploiting a worker with an intellectual disability over the course of a decade.
The Gwangju District Court handed the sentence after finding the farm owner guilty of committing quasi-fraud and violations of the Act on Welfare of Persons with Disabilities. The court also banned the owner from working at institutions related to people with disabilities for 10 years.
Quasi-fraud is defined by Korean law as the crime of taking advantage of the inexperience of a minor or the mental incapacity of an individual to take property or obtain pecuniary advantages from them.
The owner was accused of garnishing more than 96 million won ($65,000) in wages from the victim while they worked at the salt farm in Shinan county, South Jeolla, from April 2014 to August 2024. The owner told the victim their wages were being regularly deposited into their bank account. However, the victim, who has a severe intellectual disability, was unable to manage the account independently.
Authorities also found the owner had their younger sibling manage the victim’s bank account.
The sibling withdrew about 45 million won from the victim’s account after fabricating a lease contract and labeling the funds as a rental deposit. The sibling actually spent the funds on personal expenditures, such as buying stocks, but later deposited the money back into the victim's account as suspicion mounted.
![The Gwangju District Court [NEWS1]](https://koreaseafood.online/data/photo/2026/04/22/aab9566b-023f-4154-92be-5b9750448f23.jpg)
The Gwangju District Court [NEWS1]
The case was uncovered around 2023 during a nationwide review of working conditions at salt farms. A staff member at a care facility, where the victim was later transferred, was also found to have used the victim’s bank account without authorization.
The staff member, who also operated a real estate rental business, took about 90 million won under the pretense of a making a lease deposit and embezzled an additional 20 million won through six separate transactions by withdrawing and returning funds.
The farm owner’s sibling received 10 months in prison, suspended for two years, while the care facility employee was sentenced to one year and six months in prison, suspended for two years.
Another individual who received 10.5 million won from the salt farm owner in exchange for promising to stop the investigation was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for two years.
“The defendants exploited the assets of a person with disabilities who was vulnerable to such crimes and unable to recognize or report the harm,” the court ruled. “Considering the duration, repetition and scale of the crimes, the offenses are serious.”
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY PARK JONG-SUH [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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