South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) accused KT of not cooperating with an investigation into unauthorised mobile payments, with the case referred to the police, Yonhap News Agency reported.

In a statement submitted to a National Assembly committee, MSIT noted it “determined there was intentional misconduct to obstruct” the probe, including submitting false material and concealing evidence.

KT reported inaccurate information about the timing of servers being compromised and took more than two weeks to share backup logs to the investigation team, the document declared. The ministry also said the operator’s initial response was inadequate and poor management of micro base stations was responsible for the breach, the news agency wrote.

MSIT earlier this week vowed to release the findings of an investigation into the hacking incident as quickly as possible.

In early September, it set up a public-private team to probe unauthorised mobile payments impacting KT customers, with the estimated damage rising to KRW240 million ($168,000).

The operator is the second-largest mobile player in Korea with 14.9 million subscribers at end-September, behind SK Telecom with 23.1 million, data from GSMA Intelligence showed.