'The Notorious Con Artist' Jang Young-ja Arrested for the 5th Time in 15.4 Billion Won Forged Check Case

It was belatedly revealed that Jang Young-ja (81), known as a 'big player' in the 1980s, was arrested on charges of fraud involving approximately 15 billion won. This is the fifth time she has been detained.

On the 24th, the Criminal Appeals Division 3 of Cheongju District Court (Presiding Judge Tae Ji-young) overturned the original acquittal and sentenced Jang, who was indicted on charges of forging and using forged securities, to one year in prison and ordered her immediate detention in court on the 22nd.

In January 1994, when Jang Young-ja was detained for the second time. Photo by Yonhap News

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Jang is accused of signing an agricultural product supply contract with a company representative A at a hotel in Seocho-gu, Seoul, on July 10, 2017, and handing over forged checks worth 15.42 billion won as an advance payment.

The first trial court accepted Jang's claim that she "did not know the checks were forged" and acquitted her. The first trial court stated, "If the defendant had known the checks were forged, she would have used the checks immediately in a way to gain significant benefits because the forgery would have been quickly exposed. However, the defendant used the forged checks as advance payments for agricultural products that could only be supplied months later, and during that time, the forgery was revealed, so she gained no benefit."

However, the second trial court's judgment differed. The second trial court found that Jang had gained benefits from the crime and that there were similarities to her past crimes. The court pointed out, "The original court judged that the defendant was unaware of the forgery because she gained no benefit from this case, but the defendant received a performance bond of 30 million won from A at the time of the contract and did not return it."

It added, "The face value of the forged checks related to a past case in which the defendant was convicted matches the forged checks in this case, and the check numbers are consecutive with those in the past case. The method of crime, such as handing forged checks to others to cash them, is also similar."

The second trial court also noted, "Despite having a criminal record for fraud and other offenses, the defendant committed this crime again during the recidivism period."

Jang was sentenced to 15 years in prison for a 200 billion won promissory note fraud case in 1983 and was paroled in 1992 with five years remaining on her sentence. This case led to the detention of about 30 people, including Jang and her husband, two bank presidents, and Lee Gyu-gwang, Jang's brother-in-law and the maternal uncle of former President Chun Doo-hwan.

This is the fifth time Jang has been detained. After her release, she was detained again in 1994 for a 14 billion won loan fraud case and sentenced to four years. She was released in 1998 under a special pardon for Liberation Day but was detained and indicted in 2000 for a counterfeit currency fraud case and released in January 2015. In early 2018, she was again indicted and detained on charges of deceiving victims to embezzle about 600 million won under the pretext of needing funds to donate Samsung Everland convertible bonds in the name of her late husband, Lee Cheol-hee. She was later sentenced to four years in prison by the Supreme Court and released in 2022.

Jang has appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court.

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