National 2018-09-0613:24
 |
| Captured from the SIS website |
By Park Si-soo
Seoul International School (SIS) is under police investigation over allegations its chairman and headmaster Kim Hyung-shik embezzled 20 billion won ($17.8 million) in school money, local media reported on Wednesday.
The school has not commented.
According to broadcaster JTBC, Kim siphoned off the money between 2001 and 2017 and wired 13 billion won to SIS founder Edward B. Adams as paycheck and severance money. Kim pocketed the rest, JTBC reported.
Kim reportedly remitted the money in a bid to take over the school's managerial rights from the American founder. Korean law bans Korean nationals from having an international school.
The founder moved to the U.S. state of Arizona in 2001 and Kim has since managed school affairs in the capacity of "deputy chief."
Gyeonggi Office of Education detected the suspicious deal and asked police to investigate.
SIS opened in 1973 as an elementary school on the campus of Konkuk University in Seoul, offering an American curriculum in an English-only setting. It moved to the present site ― Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province ― in May 1985.
