Suspended Prison Sentence in First Trial for Developer of 'Kamko City Incident'

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] The key suspect in the 'Kamko City' incident caused by bad loans from Busan Savings Bank was sentenced to a suspended prison term in the first trial.

Seoul Central District Court. / Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

On the morning of the 15th, the Criminal Division 25-2 of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judges Park Jeongje, Park Sarang, Park Jeonggil) sentenced Lee, the CEO of World City, who was indicted on charges of embezzlement and breach of trust under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes and violation of the Depositor Protection Act, to 3 years in prison with a 4-year suspension.

The court stated, "He embezzled $6 million that was held in custody during work by arbitrarily paying it to his spouse and caused property damage amounting to $2.31 million to the company," adding, "Considering the method and circumstances of the crime, the nature of the offense is not good," but also noted, "the $2.31 million in damages suffered by Landmark Worldwide (LMW) due to breach of trust appears to have been fully recovered, which was taken into account as a favorable circumstance."

Previously, the developer World City, operated by Lee, borrowed a large sum from the Busan Savings Bank group in the 2000s to promote the Kamko City project, constructing a new city in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The structure involved having a corporation named LMW in Korea and conducting the project through the local corporation World City in Cambodia.

However, the project was halted due to bankruptcy caused by reckless project financing (PF) investment, and Busan Savings Bank, which had invested 236.9 billion KRW in the project, also went bankrupt. The Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation, unable to recover bonds worth about 670 billion KRW including delayed interest, requested an investigation by the prosecution. The prosecution detected Lee's embezzlement and other charges and brought the case to trial in July 2020.

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