'Embezzlement of Hundreds of Billions' Woori Bank Employee Sentenced to 13 Years in First Trial and Ordered to Forfeit 32.3 Billion Won

An employee accused of embezzling hundreds of millions of won over six years at Woori Bank (left) and his younger brother / Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] A Woori Bank employee and his younger brother, accused of embezzling hundreds of billions of won of company funds, were sentenced to heavy prison terms in the first trial.

On the morning of the 30th, the Criminal Division 24 of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judge Jo Yongrae) sentenced Woori Bank employee A (43), who was indicted on charges of embezzlement under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes and property concealment abroad under the Act on the Regulation of Concealment of Crime Proceeds, to 13 years in prison. His younger brother (41), who was also indicted, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. They were each ordered to pay a fine of 32.3 billion won.

Individual investor B (48), who knowingly received about 1.6 billion won of the embezzled funds from A under the pretext of payment for investment information, was sentenced to one year in prison on the same day.

The court stated, "The embezzlement of a huge amount of about 61.4 billion won is of very poor nature," and added, "It causes serious damage to corporate trust, and the blameworthiness is very high. The victims and the company have not reached a settlement, and it is realistically difficult to expect recovery of the damage."

Earlier, A and his brother were brought to trial on the 24th of last month while in custody, charged with embezzling about 61.4 billion won kept in Woori Bank accounts by withdrawing it arbitrarily in three installments from October 2012 to June 2018 and using it for personal purposes such as stock index option trading.

They are also accused of transferring about 5 billion won to accounts of paper companies established overseas, disguised as payment for goods transactions, without reporting overseas direct investment or foreign currency deposit transactions from January 2013 to November 2014.

In A’s case, from October 2015 to June 2018, he is also charged with forging documents under false names to create grounds for withdrawals and using forged documents (forgery and use of forged official documents, forgery and use of forged private documents).

The prosecution’s request for amendment of the indictment and resumption of arguments was not accepted on this day. On the 22nd, the Crime Proceeds Recovery Division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office (Chief Prosecutor Im Sejin) had applied to the court to amend the indictment to add an additional embezzlement amount of about 9.32 billion won against the A brothers.

Through additional investigations, the total embezzled amount increased to 70.7 billion won. The prosecution also detected that Jeon forged private documents in the name of Woori Bank during the embezzlement process and filed additional charges.

The prosecution requested the resumption of arguments, stating, "If the sentence is handed down as is, the embezzled funds received by third parties cannot be confiscated in the appeal trial, making it impossible to recover the damage." According to the law related to confiscation of corrupt assets, it is difficult to confiscate crime proceeds received by third parties after the defendant’s first trial sentence. The court rejected the request, stating, "The methods of the crimes are different or not specified," and proceeded with the sentencing trial on the day.

The total assets frozen by investigative agencies from the A brothers amount to 6.6 billion won. The prosecution has additionally discovered tens of billions of won embezzled under borrowed names and has requested seizure preservation from the court. It is reported that a significant portion of this has passed to third parties.

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