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SEC employees caught playing golf while claiming to work from home
Three IT staffers at the securities regulator falsified timecards to hit the links during work hours, with one supervisor resigning after a years-long investigation
The agency responsible for policing Wall Street apparently couldn’t police its own timesheets. Three SEC employees in the information technology department spent work hours on the golf course while certifying they were teleworking, according to an investigative summary from the SEC’s Office of Inspector General dated March 30, 2026.
One of the three was a supervisor. That person chose to resign. The other two were suspended.
The long game
The OIG opened the case in January 2022, meaning investigators spent roughly three years piecing together what happened.
What they found was straightforward. The three IT employees conducted golf outings during designated work hours. While they were out on the course, they were simultaneously certifying on their timecards that they were working remotely.
The OIG concluded the employees did not use annual leave, credit hours, or any other appropriate leave category to account for the time spent golfing.
Remote work under the microscope
The supervisor’s involvement makes the whole thing worse. Supervisors are typically the first line of defense against timecard fraud. When the person who’s supposed to be checking the work logs is the one falsifying them, the system breaks down entirely.
Bloomberg characterized the situation as SEC employees enjoying taxpayer-funded recreation at the expense of their professional duties.
What this means for crypto investors
The OIG investigation found nothing linking these employees to cryptocurrency-related work. The research notes that while the SEC has seen other instances of misconduct regarding employees trading prohibited crypto stocks, those cases remain separate from this golfing incident.
There’s also a resource allocation angle worth considering. The SEC has repeatedly argued it needs more funding and more staff to adequately oversee the crypto market. Congressional appropriators reading about golf-course telework might be slightly less sympathetic to those requests.
For now, the investigation is closed. One supervisor is gone. Two employees are suspended.