OSTEM Employee Embezzling 18.8 Billion Won Suspected of Purchasing Real Estate Under a False Name

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Ji-hwan Park] Suspicious circumstances have been detected suggesting that Lee Mo (45), an employee of Osstem Implant who embezzled 188 billion KRW of company funds, used part of the embezzled money to purchase real estate.

According to Yonhap News on the 6th, the police are investigating the possibility that Lee signed real estate purchase contracts under the names of family members or other individuals and paid the purchase price with the embezzled funds. The police are analyzing the flow of money through account tracking and reviewing whether the real estate under other people's names can be subject to seizure before indictment. Pre-indictment seizure refers to preventing a criminal suspect from disposing of illegal proceeds subject to confiscation before a final verdict is reached.

The building located in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, which Lee is known to have gifted to his wife and younger sibling before disappearing at the end of last year, is reported to have a low possibility of seizure. This is because Lee has owned the buildings for 7 to 8 years, making it difficult to establish a causal relationship that the embezzled company funds flowed into the purchase of the buildings.

Currently, Lee's stock account holds proceeds from the sale of 550,000 shares of Dongjin Semichem, with a total balance of 25.2 billion KRW. The police have frozen this account.

In October of last year, Lee purchased approximately 3.91 million shares of Dongjin Semichem stock for 143 billion KRW. By December, he had sold about 3.36 million shares and was holding 111.2 billion KRW.

Lee used about 68 billion KRW from the sale proceeds to purchase 851 one-kilogram gold bars. The remaining money was reportedly dispersed and transferred to other accounts to be embezzled. Of the 851 gold bars, about 450 were seized during Lee's arrest the previous day. The police are currently verifying the whereabouts of the remaining gold bars.

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