All Employees of Financial Firm Selling Italy Healthcare Fund with 'Redemption Suspension' Sentenced to 9 Years in Prison

A former Hana Bank employee who led the sales of the 'Italia Healthcare Fund,' which caused a large-scale suspension of redemptions, was sentenced to a heavy prison term.

The Criminal Division 13 of the Seoul Southern District Court (Presiding Judge Myeong Jae-kwon) on the 19th sentenced Shin Mo, former deputy general manager of Hana Bank, who was detained and indicted on charges of violating the Capital Markets Act and the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes (bribery, etc.), to 9 years in prison and a fine of 200 million KRW, and ordered a confiscation of 57.75 million KRW.

The court stated, "The amount of damage caused by the crime exceeds 110 billion KRW, which is an extremely large scale, and the method of the crime is very egregious considering the defendant was a professional in securities and related fields," and criticized, "The victims each suffered significant losses ranging from several hundred million to several billion KRW, and the resulting pain appears substantial, yet full recovery of damages has not been achieved, and the defendant made no effort to restore the damages."

However, the court explained the sentencing rationale by saying, "The expansion of the damage was not solely due to the defendant's crime but also due to the insolvency of the asset management company and negligence in management and supervision by Hana Bank. Also, the defendant did not directly acquire any money from the crime, and 81 billion KRW of the damages were recovered by Hana Bank."

Shin is accused of working in Hana Bank's investment products department from October 2017 to September 2019 and selling the fund without informing customers of the risk of loss, claiming that "the investment principal can be recovered stably unless Italy defaults."

The Italia Healthcare Fund is a private equity fund product that invests in medical fee accounts receivable claimed by Italian hospitals to local governments. Approximately 150 billion KRW worth of the fund was sold from October 2017 to September 2019.

The fund began to delay repayments or fail early repayments from the end of 2019, and sales were suspended the following year. It is known that there were about 390 victims, with damages exceeding 110 billion KRW.

Shin is also accused of receiving tens of millions of KRW from Choi Mo in April 2019 in exchange for selling another fund. Choi, who was tried together on charges including bribery under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes, was sentenced to 1 year and 6 months in prison with a 3-year probation on the same day.

After resigning in September 2019, Shin left for Singapore but was arrested after an arrest warrant was issued and his passport was invalidated. He voluntarily returned to Korea in December last year and was arrested.

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