Former Taekwang Group Chairman Lee Ho-jin, accused of creating a slush fund by siphoning off employee salaries through group affiliates, has been sent to trial.
According to legal sources on the 12th, the Criminal Division 3 of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (headed by Director General Kim Ho-kyung) indicted the former chairman without detention on the 8th on charges of embezzlement and breach of trust.
The former chairman is accused of embezzling about 3.1 billion won in company funds by creating a slush fund through Taekwang Group affiliates by falsely paying salaries into employee accounts and then siphoning them off.
The former chairman was also charged with having Taekwang CC cover roughly 600 million won in construction costs for a golf practice range and using about 80 million won on an affiliate corporate card for personal purposes.
Police investigating the case referred the former chairman on charges including embezzlement and breach of trust in September 2024. After supplementary investigation, prosecutors excluded criminal facts for which proving some charges was difficult and indicted the former chairman.
A Taekwang Group official said, "This case began when former Management Council Chair Kim Ki-yu, who is on trial over about 15 billion won in alleged improper loans, tipped off police to shift responsibility for his own illegal acts onto the former chairman."
The official added, "The slush fund was money that the former chair paid as double salaries to his own associates and then took back, and the golf practice range construction has nothing to do with the former chairman," and said, "We will faithfully clarify these facts during the trial."