Over 25% of Korea’s Online Agri-Fishery Wholesale Market Transactions Flagged as Abnormal

More than a quarter of all transactions executed on South Korea’s official agricultural and marine online wholesale market during a two-year review period were classified as abnormal or atypical, according to parliamentary data released on September 30, 2026. The state-backed trading platform, launched in November 2023 to enable direct digital commerce between production sites and consumer hubs, recorded tens of thousands of flagged deals totaling hundreds of billions of Korean won.

Transaction Volume and Growth of Flagged Trades

Data submitted by the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation (aT) to Representative Lim Mi-ae of the National Assembly’s Agriculture, Food, Rural Affairs, Oceans and Fisheries Committee reveals that 64,190 out of 250,705 confirmed purchases between 2024 and 2025—or 25.6%—met the criteria for abnormal transactions.

Measured by value, these irregular deals accounted for 6천822억원, representing 36.2% of the platform’s total 1조8천849억원 in transactions over the same timeframe. The scale of flagged activity escalated sharply year-over-year. In 2024, abnormal transactions stood at 20,630 cases totaling 2천47억원. By 2025, that figure more than doubled to 43,560 cases valued at 4천775억원, with abnormal deals claiming 38.6% of the entire annual transaction volume.

Specific Irregularities and Special Relationships

According to the transaction inspection report, the most frequent category involved 37,940 orders valued at 1천331억원 where delivery vehicles departed before the orders were officially placed. In addition, the platform recorded 21,370 short-distance transactions worth 4천419억원 where the distance between the business site or departure point and the destination was under three kilometers.

The review also highlighted transactions involving related parties, defined as instances where the seller and buyer shared representatives or executives, or where one entity held a 30% or greater stake in the other. While these 3,369 transactions accounted for just 1.3% of total trades, they commanded a disproportionate 14.3% of total transaction value at 2천700억원. The average transaction size for these related-party deals exceeded 약 8천만원, roughly ten times the overall market average.

The aT report noted that while related-party transactions are not inherently illegal, they carry inherent risks of trade-price manipulation or improper subsidy collection. Furthermore, investigators identified 196 instances of circular trading—valued at 119억원—where a party repurchased previously sold items from the same counterpart within 45 days. The report stated that such patterns raise reasonable suspicion of actions intended to inflate trading performance metrics.

Vulnerabilities in Transport Subsidy Administration

The oversight uncovered systemic gaps in how transport subsidies are managed on the platform. Out of 3만7천79 transactions that received transport subsidies across 2024 and 2025, 7,256 individual records lacked fundamental transportation data, including vehicle registration numbers, driver details, and freight charges.

The parliamentary report warned that the absence of system-level verification for transport information creates clear risks of over-issuing subsidies. However, out of 12,498 specific transactions subjected to intensive reviews for potential unlawful receipt, no cases were officially finalized as subsidy fraud or designated for fund recovery.

Calls for Rigorous Institutional Oversight

Representative Lim criticized the persistence of irregular volume on a state-engineered infrastructure. It is fundamentally incomprehensible that an official platform planned and designed by the government exhibits such an abnormally high volume of irregular trades, Lim stated, as reported by Yonhap News Agency. Rather than hastily concluding that no unlawful receipt occurred, we must establish accurate root-cause analyses and implement concrete countermeasures.