Tag: fraud

I almost feel bad for Cho Kuk, his life crashed after trying to carry out former President Moon’s orders when he was his Justice Minister:

 Former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, currently under trial on academic fraud charges connected to his daughter and son, said Monday he respects his children’s decision to renounce controversial academic degrees.

Cho, a former Seoul National University professor who served as a justice minister under the previous Moon Jae-in administration, made the remark as he appeared for a hearing at the Seoul High Court in southern Seoul. 

An appeal trial is currently under way after Cho was given a two-year prison term on charges connected to his children’s admission to a medical school and a graduate school. 

Last week, Cho Min, the ex-minister’s daughter, dropped her lawsuits filed to reverse decisions by Korea University and Pusan National University’s Graduate School of Medicine to revoke her admissions, saying she will “go back to the starting point and start again with a clean slate.”

The ex-minister’s son also announced through a lawyer a decision to relinquish his master’s degree in political science from Yonsei University Graduate School last week.

“As a father, my heart ached but I decided to respect their decisions to begin anew from the starting point,” the ex-minister said. 

“Since a guilty sentence was finalized for professor Chung Kyung-sim at the Supreme Court, she herself and the family humbly accepted it and are reflecting on themselves,” Cho said, referring to his wife who is currently serving a four-year prison sentence on academic fraud and other charges.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but if Cho Kuk had never accepted the Justice Minister position and had not tried to limit the power of prosecutors none of the academic fraud stuff would have come to light. It was used to take him out and it worked.

According to the article Chinese nationals make up 56% of the suspicious property transactions currently being investigated. Americans make up 21%, Taiwanese 8%, and Canadians 6.6% of the additional suspicious real estate cases:

A view of apartment complexes seen in Jamsil in southern Seoul [YONHAP]

The Korean government detected over 400 suspicious land transactions made by foreigners between 2017 and 2022, with more than half of the cases linked with Chinese nationals.    
   
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport reported 437 land acquisitions deemed illegal to related investigation agencies following its large-scale nationwide investigation conducted from February through to June. Out of a total of 14,938 foreign land transactions between 2017 and 2022, the investigation then focused on 920 suspicious cases, in which individuals involved were asked to provide supporting documents for further examination.  (…..)

The investigation identified various violations, with the most common being the manipulation of reported transaction amounts and contract dates, with 419 cases of misreported contracts. Additionally, 61 cases were suspected of tax evasion through expedient gifting, and 35 cases raised suspicions of illegally imported funds from overseas.  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

The good old BAH scam that just never seems to go away:

A former Air Force noncommissioned officer has been charged by federal prosecutors with wire fraud, accusing him of proposing marriage to scores of women to bilk the Pentagon out of more than $100,000 in housing benefits.

D’Montre Green, a former Air Force staff sergeant, was charged June 16 in the alleged scheme that targeted at least 93 women, according to court documents filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Prosecutors said Green propositioned the women for marriage in April 2017 in an effort to boost his Basic Allowance for Housing stipend, which was set to decrease after his divorce one month earlier.

Green served in the Air Force from December 2011 until May 2022, according to prosecutors. He was stationed at Royal Air Force Lakenheath in the United Kingdom with the 48th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron when he began his spree of marriage proposals.

Green told the women in “text messages and mobile applications” that he would pay them part of his increased monthly BAH payment in exchange for a legal marriage, prosecutors said. Service members with dependents are entitled to higher housing stipends than single troopers. 

In one exchange, published in the court documents, Green compared such an arrangement to being a “sugar daddy,” but added sexual favors would not be part of the deal.

“So basically I would get paid extra from my job by having a spouse/dependent, which in return I’d be paying you [$]500 every month for the next [four] years or however long we agree if you’re interested,” Green wrote to one woman. “And no, I’m not expecting you to live with me or do any favors, just a title as a wife.”

One woman from Abilene, Texas, who was not identified by name in the court documents, agreed to marry Green in April 2017 “for the purpose of obtaining increased military benefits, including BAH, to which he would otherwise not be entitled.” Green and the woman were married by proxy, while Green was still in the U.K., according to prosecutors.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but what this idiot did was claim his fake wife lived in San Francisco, one of the highest areas for BAH. What these BAH fraudsters fail to realize is that any time you put a high income BAH location on your paperwork it will eventually get investigated. Sure enough Army investigators caught up this idiot. If he would have just put Abilene, Texas where his fake wife lived he would have likely never been caught.

This is horrible that this rental scam has caused three people to commit suicide. Hopefully no one else loses their lives over this fraud:

The woman is the third victim of a recent rental scam to have apparently taken their own life.

She had reported herself as a victim of a massive swindle case by a local builder, who was arrested in February for failing to return a combined 12.5 billion won (US$9.518 million) in rental deposits he had received for 161 apartment units in Michuhol between January and July last year.

The deceased was unable to retrieve her deposit of 90 million won after the apartment she was living in was put up for auction in June last year, according to a group of tenants who fell prey to the scam.

Two other victims also died by apparent suicide in the same ward on Feb. 28 and last Friday, respectively.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is amazing how far the Cho Kuk family has fallen for something likely many other Korean politicians and other in positions of power are guilty of as well:

Former Justice Minister Cho Kuk and his daughter Cho Min have been facing criticism over their unrepentant attitude toward the high-profile corruption scandal involving their family. 

According to legal sources, Tuesday, the Seoul Central District Court reprimanded Cho Kuk while sentencing him to two years in prison last Friday, saying he has never reflected on his wrongdoings.

The former minister, who was indicted in 2019, was found guilty of multiple charges, including using his influence to help his two children gain entry into universities and graduate schools. The court, however, did not immediately incarcerate him, citing escape was not a concern. 

“Cho Kuk has continued to argue against objective evidence even after he stood before this court,” the court said in its ruling. “He has continued to turn a blind eye to his wrongdoings and never reflected on them. Consequently, imposing harsh penalties on him is unavoidable.”

The court said the corruption involving his children’s school admission was contrary to social expectations and obligation as a renowned professor, and that it damaged justice in the country’s school admissions system. 

Cho Kuk was an outspoken liberal law professor at Seoul National University until he served under the previous Moon Jae-in administration.

On the same day, the court gave another year in prison to the former minister’s wife Chung Kyung-sim ― who is already serving a four-year sentence for academic fraud ― on related charges. 

Despite their parents’ conviction, Cho Min said she did not feel ashamed of herself at all, during an interview with left-leaning broadcaster Kim Ou-joon.

The interview, filmed Friday, the day her father was convicted, was aired on Monday through Kim’s YouTube channel. It marked the first time that Cho Min had shown her face since the corruption scandal involving the family made headlines in 2019. 

“Prosecutors, media and political circles were so harsh to my family for the past four years,” Cho Min said. 

The younger Cho passed the state exam to become a doctor and graduated from the medical school of Pusan National University (PNU) located in the southern port city of Busan in 2021.

But the medical school decided to revoke her admission in the same year following her mother’s conviction over forging her daughter’s academic records to gain entry to the school.

Cho Min has filed a lawsuit, requesting the court to cancel this decision, with trials still underway. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I can under why the daughter is unrepentant because she has a lot to lose if she doesn’t win her court case by not becoming a doctor.

This is the first time I have read of a direct accusation against Lee Jae-myung from someone directly involved with the Daejang-dong real estate investment scandal:

Lawyer Nam Wook, a key figure in the Daejang-dong development corruption scandal, is surrounded by reporters as he walks to his trial at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho District, southern Seoul on Monday. [YONHAP]

A key figure in the Daejang-dong corruption scandal said Monday he heard that Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung held a hidden stake through one of the investors in the project.  
   
Lawyer Nam Wook made the allegation at his trial on the Daejang-dong case at the Seoul Central District Court, hours after he was released from jail at midnight Sunday after his detention period expired. Nam is charged with breach of trust and bribery in the case.  
   
His case is believed by prosecutors to be part of a larger conspiracy concerning astronomical profits raked in by Hwacheon Daeyu, a previously obscure asset management company, and its Cheonhwa Dongin affiliates, from minuscule investments in a 2015 real estate development project in the Daejang-dong area of Seongnam, Gyeonggi, as well as suspicions about their true ownership. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This would make for a great Dog the Bounty Hunter episode hunting this guy down:

South Korean prosecutors said Sunday that Do Kwon, the wanted founder of Terraform Labs accused of fraud following the massive collapse of the firm’s cryptocurrencies in May, is “obviously on the run” and not cooperating with the investigation.

The remarks came in response to Kwon’s claim in a tweet that “I am not ‘on the run’ or anything similar — for any government agency that has shown interest to communicate, we are in full cooperation and we don’t have anything to hide.”

On Saturday, Singapore police’s statement said the Terraform founder and CEO is no longer in Singapore.

The blockchain firm has been under investigation for alleged fraud and tax evasion after investors in its cryptocurrencies — TerraUSD and Luna — filed complaints against Kwon in May, accusing him of a Ponzi scheme over the loss of billions of won following the crash of both coins earlier that month.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I thought the accusations against Lee Jae-myung’s wife would just go away after the election, but it appears investigators must have some really good evidence to go after her like this:

 The wife of former ruling party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung was grilled by police Tuesday about allegations related to her personal use of a provincial government corporate credit card years ago.

Kim Hye-kyung left the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency in Suwon, 50 kilometers south of Seoul, at about 6:50 p.m. after undergoing five hours of questioning, accompanied by her lawyer.

Upon emerging from the police agency, she was asked by reporters about whether she admitted to suspicions related to her corporate credit card use but did not reply.

Kim is accused of using a credit card of the Gyeonggi government for personal shopping and eating, while her husband was Gyeonggi governor from 2018-2021.

She is also suspected of forcing civil servants to run her personal errands, such as getting drug prescriptions, buying prescription drugs on her behalf and paying for meals at restaurants. 

Allegations of Kim’s corporate credit card misuse and other misconduct surfaced early this year ahead of the March 9 presidential election.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I have no idea if Yoon’s mother-in-law is guilty of these accusations, but why did it take six years and when Yoon’s may be seeking the presidency for these charges to happen? I think this is arguably payback on Yoon for going after the corruption surrounding the former Justice Minister Cho Kuk and his family:

A team of state prosecutors requested Monday that a local court sentence the mother-in-law of Yoon Seok-youl, a former top prosecutor, to three years in jail.

The 74-year-old, identified only by her surname Choi, is accused of violating the Medical Service Act in connection with her involvement in a nursing facility.

She illegally received about 2.29 billion won (US$20 million) from the National Health Insurance Service while running the nursing hospital in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, from 2013-2015 along with three business partners, according to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.