A Woori Bank branch manager who took money and valuables and issued about 2.4 billion won in bad loans was sentenced to prison in the first trial.
According to legal sources on the 26th, the Criminal Agreement Division 15 of the Seoul Southern District Court (Presiding Judge Noh Yu-kyung) sentenced former bank branch manager a person surnamed Kim, who was charged with breach of trust and taking bribes under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes, to five years in prison and a fine of 100 million won.
The court also ordered the forfeiture of 57.49 million won received as a quid pro quo for the solicitation.
Kim is accused of issuing bad loans totaling 2.471 billion won over 11 instances from April 2022 to Oct. last year, and of taking 57.49 million won over 10 instances.
The court said, "It is highly blameworthy that an officer or employee of a financial company damaged the general public's trust in integrity and fairness and disrupted the fair transaction order of the financial market."
It went on to explain the sentencing reasons, noting that Kim consistently made excuses, such as shifting responsibility to working-level staff, and did not make efforts to restore the damage.
Broker a person surnamed Son, who was indicted together on charges of soliciting the loan from Kim and handing over money and valuables in return, was sentenced to three years in prison and was taken into custody in court.
The court said it determined that "(Son) had already received a suspended sentence for fraud in June 2021 and committed another offense before that period ended, and there were no indications of efforts to restore the damage."