'Kim Bong-hyun Aided Embezzlement of Hundreds of Billions' Former Executives of Hyanggun Sangjohoe Appear for Arrest Warrant Hearing

Acquisition of Hyanggun Sangjohoe through Capital-Free Mergers and Acquisitions
Unfair Profit of 62.8 Billion Won by Reselling Method

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Byung-don] Former executives of the Veterans Association (Hyanggun) mutual aid society, suspected of being involved in the 1.6 trillion won 'Lime Asset Management redemption suspension incident,' appeared in court on the 13th for pre-trial detention hearings (warrant hearings).

Former Vice Chairman Jang of the Hyanggun mutual aid society appeared at the Seoul Southern District Court around 2 p.m. that day. Earlier, Park, who previously served as Vice President of the Hyanggun mutual aid society, also appeared at the same court in the morning.

The warrant hearings were conducted by Judge Seong Bo-gi, who is in charge of warrants, and the decision on detention was expected to be made late that afternoon.

The prosecution requested arrest warrants for Jang and Park on charges including embezzlement under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes.

According to the prosecution, they are accused of assisting Kim Bong-hyun (46, detained), chairman of Star Mobility and identified as the mastermind behind the Lime incident, in acquiring the Hyanggun mutual aid society through a 'no-capital merger and acquisition' (M&A) method, and embezzling approximately 37.8 billion won of the mutual aid society's assets together with Chairman Kim.

They are also charged with hiding the embezzlement and reselling the Hyanggun mutual aid society to Company A mutual aid society, receiving 25 billion won as a down payment and embezzling it.

Meanwhile, a group that acquired a KOSDAQ-listed company using Lime funds and embezzled hundreds of billions of won in company money has been detained.

Judge Seong issued arrest warrants after conducting warrant hearings for three individuals, including Kim, the previous day.

Kim and another person are accused of receiving about 100 billion won in Lime fund money to acquire listed companies such as S-Materials and embezzling 47 billion won from these companies (violation of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes).

Another individual, Lee, is charged with manipulating the stock price of S-Materials by providing tens of billions of won to professional market manipulators (violation of the Capital Markets Act). Lee is also accused of embezzling 3.9 billion won from the listed company L.

Additionally, the prosecution requested an arrest warrant for Jung, who connected a group of corporate raiders to market manipulators and gained unfair profits worth about 1.4 billion won in return. However, Jung did not appear in court by the afternoon of the 13th, following the hearing held the previous day.

A court official explained, "Even if the suspect does not appear for the warrant hearing, the court can decide whether to issue an arrest warrant based solely on the documents submitted by the prosecution."

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