[Exclusive] 'Stock Goddess' Housewife Influencer Lee Seulbi Sentenced to 8 Years in Prison... Embezzled 16 Billion Won

26,000 Followers 'Jusik Injumma'... Received 16.1 Billion KRW Investment
Stock Lecture Fee 3.3 Million KRW... 1st and 2nd Trials "Denies Charges, Shows No Remorse"

A housewife influencer named Lee Seul-bi, who was known as the so-called ‘Stock Day Trading Goddess’ by pretending to be a stock expert on social networking services (SNS), showing manipulated stock investment profits, and flaunting wealth by posting photos of luxury foreign cars and designer goods, has been sentenced to 8 years in prison for fraud involving approximately 16 billion KRW.

Channel A 'Black 2: Soul Destroyers' screen capture.

The Supreme Court’s 2nd Division (Presiding Justice Cheon Dae-yeop) announced on the 28th that it upheld the original sentence of 8 years imprisonment and a fine of 3.16 billion KRW in the final appeal trial against Lee Seul-bi (37, female), who was charged with violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes (fraud) and other charges.

Since around March 2015, Lee had risen to stardom among the public as the so-called ‘Stock Injumma (Instagram Ajumma), stock expert, scalping (day trading) master,’ with 26,000 Instagram followers. She continuously posted about her harmonious and wealthy daily life with her family on SNS and gained favorable impressions by donating protective suits and masks when COVID-19 began.

However, in reality, she had suffered losses of 4.2 billion KRW through stock and futures trading and was in such financial difficulty that she could not even pay credit card bills, apartment maintenance fees, or interest on bank loans. Nevertheless, she edited screenshots of securities account profit and loss amounts, rates of return, and settlement amounts to fabricate photos that made it appear as if she was earning hundreds of thousands to millions of KRW daily from stock trading, and consistently posted these on her Instagram.

From April 2017 to July 2021, Lee deceived victims who believed her to be a ‘stock expert’ by posting profit certification photos on Instagram, promising “a fixed monthly return of 7-10% and the principal can be returned anytime upon request,” and received about 11.08 billion KRW from 7 victims, causing each victim losses exceeding 500 million KRW.

Channel A 'Black 2: Soul Destroyers' screen capture.

Additionally, using the same method, Lee received a total of 4.27 billion KRW from 37 victims and, despite never having made money from stocks, pretended to have the intention and ability to teach how to earn profits from stock trading, collecting a total of 500 million KRW from 154 victims who wanted to take stock lectures from her, charging 3.3 million KRW per person.

The first trial court stated, “She created the appearance of having excellent investment techniques and expertise, earning large profits from stock investments over many years, then defrauded about 16.1 billion KRW from 44 victims over approximately 4 years and engaged in quasi-deposit activities. She also induced investments from victims’ acquaintances, increasing the damage. Despite this, she denied the crimes and showed no sincere remorse for her wrongdoing, making a severe sentence inevitable,” and sentenced her to 8 years in prison.

Furthermore, Lee was sentenced to 8 months in prison for another case in which she received a total of 600 million KRW investment funds from 2 people from December 2020 to April last year by promising “to settle 50% of the investment as profit every 3 months.”

The second trial court, which combined the two cases, recognized all of Lee’s charges as guilty and sentenced her to 8 years in prison, also accepting the prosecution’s claim for confiscation that the first trial court had rejected, ordering her to pay 3.1 billion KRW in confiscation.

The second trial court judged, “The method of crime was bold and malicious, including fabricating stock investment profits and stock balance certificates, posting them, and deceiving victims by presenting fictitious companies that do not actually exist. The nature of the crime is very bad. However, since some victims expected unrealistic profits and hastily paid money under the name of investment funds, some victims bear a certain degree of responsibility for the occurrence or expansion of the damage,” and the Supreme Court also agreed that the second trial court’s judgment was correct.