The owner of a jewelry shop in Seoul's Jongno district, accused of defrauding customers of more than 10 billion won in gold and mutual savings funds, has been arrested by police.
The Financial Crime Investigation Unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's Metropolitan Investigation Division said on the 13th that it had arrested Lee, a man in his 50s facing fraud charges under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes, and applied for an arrest warrant the previous day. Prosecutors requested the warrant from the court the same day.
The Seoul Central District Court will hold a pre-detention interrogation of Lee at 3:30 p.m. that day.
Lee is accused of deceiving customers with whom he had traded for a long time while running the jewelry shop, telling them he would sell gold at prices lower than the market rate, taking their money and embezzling it. He also faces charges of proposing to pay rental fees to customers who re-deposited the gold they had purchased, then failing to return it.
The scale of damage identified by police so far exceeds 10 billion won, and the number of complaints filed reached 140, the investigation found. The Hyehwa Police Station, which first investigated the case, transferred it last month to the Financial Crime Investigation Unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency's Metropolitan Investigation Division, considering the scale of the damage and other factors.
Meanwhile, victims have been submitting petitions through the government's e-People portal urging a swift investigation. Some 40 to 50 people are known to have participated so far.
