'Big Fraudster' Jang Young-ja, Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison for 600 Million Won Fraud After Release

Jang Young-ja / Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] The court has confirmed a 4-year prison sentence for Jang Young-ja (75), who was known as a "big player in the fraud world" in the 1980s for a promissory note fraud worth billions of won, recognizing her fraud charges involving 600 million won.

The Supreme Court's 1st Division (Presiding Justice Park Sang-ok) upheld the original sentence of 4 years in prison on the 9th in the final appeal trial of Jang, who was detained and prosecuted on charges of fraud and forgery of securities. The court stated, "There is no error in the original court's judgment that the defendant deceived the victims to embezzle money and knowingly used forged cashier's checks."

Jang was detained and prosecuted on charges of embezzling a total of 620 million won in three instances over about two years from July 2015 by deceiving victims with claims such as needing costs and business funds to donate convertible bonds of Samsung Everland under the name of her late husband Lee Cheol-hee. She was also accused of attempting to convert forged checks worth hundreds of millions of won into cash.

Including this case, Jang has been detained four times on fraud charges. In 1982, she was sentenced to 15 years in prison for a promissory note fraud worth 640 billion won and was paroled in 1992. Then, in 1994, she was sentenced to 4 years in prison and re-detained for a loan fraud case involving 14 billion won. She was released in 1998 under a special pardon for Liberation Day but was detained again in 2000 for a case involving old currency worth 22 billion won and was released in January 2015.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.