The head of a defense contractor who leaked core national strategic technologies, including submarine design blueprints, to Taiwan and clinched a contract worth 150 billion won received only a 2-year, 6-month prison sentence in the first trial.
According to legal sources on the 26th, Presiding Judge Kim Nam-il of the Changwon District Court Masan Branch Criminal Division 3 sentenced A, a company head and former Navy lieutenant colonel indicted on charges of violating the Foreign Trade Act, to two years and six months in prison and ordered immediate detention in court. The corporation run by A was ordered to pay a fine of 15 billion won and forfeit 95 billion won.
From 2019 to 2020, A was indicted on charges including illegally leaking to Taiwan hundreds of key files, such as submarine torpedo tube blueprints, obtained through former employees of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (now Hanwha Ocean). Based on this, A signed an equipment supply contract with the Taiwanese side worth $110 million (about 150 billion won). Using this information, Taiwan developed its first domestically built submarine, "Hai Kun," in 2023.
A argued that the reverse-engineering drawings provided by Taiwan constituted the original technology and that the major drawings alleged to have been leaked were supplementary or converted designs based on that original technology. But the court did not accept A's argument.
Judge Kim said, "This crime could pose a significant threat to Korea's security, given that strategic technology was exported without a determination by the Defense Acquisition Program Administration and the export counterparty was Taiwan, which is in a tense relationship with neighboring countries in East Asia," adding, "A recognized that violating the Foreign Trade Act could be problematic but focused only on performing the contract, and when the investigation began, tried to avoid punishment by crafting a narrative of exporting supplementary technology."