Prosecution Seeks 15-Year Prison Sentence for Vice President Lee Jong-pil in Lime Fraud and Embezzlement Case

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Hyun-seok] The prosecution has requested a 15-year prison sentence for former Lime Asset Management (Lime) Vice President Lee Jong-pil, who was additionally indicted on charges of fund fraud, breach of trust, and bribery.

On the 13th, at the sentencing hearing of former Vice President Lee held by the Criminal Division 12 of the Seoul Southern District Court (Presiding Judge Oh Sang-yong), the prosecution asked the court to sentence him to 15 years in prison, a fine of 4 billion KRW, and a confiscation of approximately 1.88 billion KRW.

The prosecution explained, "The defendant concealed fund losses and shifted losses to other funds to attract new investments, which increased the scale of damage. The amount defrauded from numerous investors and the breach of trust damages amount to hundreds of billions of KRW, and he obtained enormous personal gains through embezzlement."

Former Vice President Lee is accused of fraud under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes by deceiving investors while managing the 'Lime Credit Insured (CI) Fund' sold by Shinhan Bank in August 2019, collecting approximately 79.4 billion KRW in investments from 141 people.

The CI Fund was set up to invest in trade receivables insured by credit insurance. However, Lime invested part of the fund's money not in the investment destinations specified in the product proposal but in 'Pluto FI D-1 (private bond fund)' and 'Pluto TF-1 (trade finance fund)'.

When the companies invested by the Lime fund suffered investment losses due to audit opinion refusals, fearing fund redemption requests or suspension of new investments, Lime engaged in so-called 'ponzi-like' investments by purchasing impaired bonds at high prices using other fund money, which is also charged as breach of trust under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes.

It was investigated that former Vice President Lee caused damages to Lime by acquiring convertible bonds (CB) worth approximately 90 billion KRW at high prices from four companies including PartyGames in this manner.

The indictment also states that Lee received a total of 2.59 billion KRW in bribes from Chairman Kim of Metropolitan Group, a developer that invested 350 billion KRW of Lime fund money, including personal chauffeur salaries, foreign car lease payments, and proceeds from the sale of shares in Metropolitan-affiliated corporations.

The first trial verdict in this case will be delivered on October 8.

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